If mere "lack of introspection" were the cause of this behavior, I'd be in my 32nd year as a Democrat instead of my 1st year as a Republican.

No, Dean, it's not lack of introspection- it's lack of honesty.

Considering the widely publicized machinations in the “plan’s” implementation (remember Jay Garner?) and the admitted failure(s) by the administration to anticipate the reality of post-war Iraq, only explanation for this thread is knee-jerk partisanship.

Shep, you ought to meet Dave.

Shep, what's the largest project you've ever delivered, either in terms of dollar value or number of customers directly impacted?

What I'm noticing is that those who have been responsible for large-scale deliverables, especially in an entrepreneurial and unpredictable environment, are the ones most impressed by the Coalition's progress to date, while those who spend their lives on the receiving end of the nicely-packaged boxes are the most judgmental.

I'd like to validate my hypothesis against your resume.

well spoken, Jonathan!

I don't think that the powers-that-be have quite caught on to the fact that information is so much more widely available and disseminated than, say, ten years ago and before. Thus, a Ted Kennedy sort thinks that he can spout off about "Bush lied" and get away with it as he might have done back in 1985.

Shep,
Maybe I'm confused, but I don't remember "admitted failure(s) by the administration to anticipate the reality." Could you expand on who admitted "failure?" We've been in Kosovo for four years and we've only been in post-war Iraq for four months. And, BTW, there have been more civilian deaths in the last 2 months in the Congo where the French are leading a "peacekeeping" force than there have been US deaths in Iraq in the last 4 months. Failure? Where?

Shep: I remember Jay Garner just fine. That was the man brought in as the temporary administrator, but was called home early because he had trouble getting on top of things--although, in all fairness, he did some pretty good things, too, and had some pretty good successes.

What about him?

Jonathan: Yes, I often think that's the real problem. People who've never actually been in the role of managing large-scale projects involving multiple people and factors have a tendency to expect leaders to be psychic, to anticipate everything that could go wrong, and to have a plan for it. Thus, every frustration, every setback, every unanticipated event, is looked upon as proof of incompetence, venality, etc.

Indeed, you wonder if these people have ever even worked on cars, let alone seen how large projects are managed.

And perhaps another reason. The majority of Democrats seeking the presidency have sold their souls to the devil for a shot at being able to exercise the ultimate political power. There is nothing they will not do or say in the quest, including outright lying and assassinating the character of honorable men for purely political purposes. These people are morally bankrupt.

I really think that's rather harsh, Cart.

Most politicians are in a profession where balancing divergent interests is required. The ones least likely to compromise are also the most likely to be lunatics.

Informed citizens helping inform their other citizens is what really helps improve political discourse.

I mean, really, do you suppose George W. Bush never compromised on principle, or said things he later wound up retracting? I can give you several examples. For one, Bush once darkly insinuated that he would never allow a "known homosexual" to work in his administration, and said he probably wouldn't meet with the Log Cabin Republicans. But he did the latter, and now has quite a few openly gay people serving in his staff, without harassment or apology.

A good politician, in my view, has a few core convictions he sticks to, tries hard not to break his promises, explains why when he does break them, and avoids ad hominem attacks most of the time. That's about the best we can expect of any human being, isn't it?

When you look at elected Republicans vs. elected Democrats, I'm not really sure you can say that either party has a lock on the honorable or the dishonorable kind. Although I'm mightily displeased with some of the dishonorable stuff some Democrats have been saying lately, I admit.

Jonathan makes a good point--people who have never actually been responsible for large-scale projects often fail to realize just how difficult it is to get things done in the resistant, complex, and often chaotic real world. People who would have trouble installing a new outlet in their house are quick to denounce those who have not met their expectations for the rebuilding of a national electricity grid. This is a manifestation of the increasingly-sharp divide between the "word people" and the "action people," which permeates all aspects of society.

That said, I do think there were some shortfalls in the planning. One example: Before the war began, large orders should have been placed with every manufacturer of backup generators. The extent of chaos in the Iraqi electical system was unpredictable; the fact that there would be such chaos was utterly predictable. There should have been a steady stream of generators coming out of factories and on their way to Iraq.

The media usually fails to cover specific issues like this very well. Two reasons: (a) they are more interested in wild-swinging denunciations, and (b) most journalists lack the practical knowledge to research and write such a story.

I am baffled why people believe that Iraq's electrical grid was such a huge priority. As far as I can tell, those who proclaims "failures" and bad planning are themselves doing so based on misplaced priorities. The US military did such a good job on the highest priorities that people are mistakenly judging them for secondary ones.

Dean,

But even you admit there is a disconnect between reality and a lot of Democrats these days....

To say that things aren't going according to plan in Iraq is to say that its not going according to what the critic says should have been the easy, A B C plan....its asinine to think like that. We spend years training our soldiers to think on their feet and adapt rapidly to the most disconcerting changes imaginable; if you think the problems you had in business were sometimes quite tricky (and they were) then they pale in comparison to what a 25 year old captain in the Army has to confront all the time in Iraq. You, of course, realise this - as do all sensible thinkers.

Since a goodly portion of the Democrats seem to resolutely ignore this sort of thing, we have to put them down as unsensible thinkers. This, then, leads us to the ultra-important question: why?

Why on earth would they be doing the things they are doing? My view is that they've just given up on serious thinking about foreign and military affairs. They are content to leave such things in the hands of professional State Department employees and the good offices of the United Nations - with the Democrats (presumtively in charge, in their hopes) just ratifying what everyone else thinks. Foreign and military affairs bore them and they just hate it with a white-hot passion when the debate is over such things rather than being over whatever it is they have in mind at the moment (and, this is even worse; what is the Democrats main point right now? What is the Democratic plan?).

It's not about "the plan", per se. It's whether the justifications for war match the reality, and whether the expectations of the Administration match reality. From the perspective of non-Republicans, the goods don't match the sales pitch. Republicans writing here generally do so from an "us smart guys knew it would be hard" standpoint. This is NOT the image that was conveyed to the public. Remember Mitch Daniels? $50 billion for the war, he said. Lawrence Lindsey was fired from the White House for saying it would cost $200 billion.

The White has played down the costs of this war very actively, particularly in the decision stage. If things are "going according to plan", as many of you seem to feel, then why have the costs spiralled upwards? This war may end up costing, in the long run (ten years), half a trillion dollars. If the Iraq situation IS going according to plan, cost estimates early on were inaccurate at best, and potentially deliberately misleading.

It is perhaps true that the planners in the administration knew roughly where we'd be at this point, and that we're on one of their contingency lines. Accurate financial information was not provided to the decision makers (Congress). In addition, faulty intelligence was used to make the decision. The continuing argument of the administration is that virtually all intelligence prior to the war had Hussein in possession of WMD...to the extent that we are able to verify it, there are no WMD.

Sometimes when you make a huge mistake, you pay a price. I can't think of a much bigger mistake than leading a country into a war with shoddy financial planning, incorrect intelligence, and having kicked sand in the face of the rest of the world. Even if Bush did this with good intentions, it's a sufficiently huge mistake, either in process or result, that his removal would be sensible.

It's up to the voters to decide.

Forgot: On Jay Garner...I never did understand why he was so ineffective when he hit the ground in Iraq...weeks went by and nothing happened. Perhaps this is the explanation:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/972362.asp?0cv=KB10

"The day before he was supposed to leave for the region, Garner got a call from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who ordered him to cut 16 of the 20 State officials from his roster. It seems that the State Department people were deemed to be Arabist apologists, or squishy about the United Nations, or in some way politically incorrect to the right-wing ideologues at the White House or the neocons in the office of the Secretary of Defense. The vetting process “got so bad that even doctors sent to restore medical services had to be anti-abortion,” recalled one of Garner’s team. Finally, Secretary of State Colin Powell tried to stand up for his troops and stop Rumsfeld’s meddling. “I can take hostages, too,” Powell warned the secretary of Defense. “How hard do you want to play this thing?”

Ross,

Well, the fact of the matter is that State is riddled with people who'd rather be on good terms with France than be overly concerned with US strategic interests...remember, there is such a thing as corporate mindset and we get our diplomats out of a fairly narrow talent pool, and a pool heavily influenced by people who cut their teeth during the Cold War...its no surprise that their diplomatic thinking isn't up to the post-9/11 challenges. Powell is a fantastic SecState, but he's not much of a feather-ruffler, and thus he's not sweeping as cleanly with the senior State staff as Rumsfeld is over at Defense...more's the pity, but you can't have everything.

As for the plan - you ever looked at the situation maps of the Normandy invasion? Caen was supposed to be captured the morning of June 6th, it didn't fall for five weeks...meanwhile, the breakout to the west which was supposed to take place going from Caen was actually eventuated on the other side of the Cotentin penninsula around Arvanches....so much for the best laid plans of mice and men; we adapted, overcame the difficulties and still got precisely what we wanted. How much you wanna bet that the monetary cost of liberating France far outpaced estimates?

War is an ever-shifting thing; you lays your plans, but your plans are subject to rapid change. Things are going according to plan in the sense that the plan was to have Saddam out and cut at the heart of the State-sponsored-terrorist millieu. Whether or not we were supposed to have 100% electric power up by now is immaterial - and given that even Saddam couldn't get 100% power service, it stands to reason that we're going to have some difficulties in the matter.

The problem, Ross, is that you undercut your own credibility by referring to everyone who doubts your viewpoint as "Republicans" and paint it as "non-Republicans" who are on the other side. You undercut it further by citing a polemic editorial from left-wing political commentators who freely mix opinion and rumor with fact and make little effort to distinguish between them.

Your failure to acknowledge that, so far, we are within the pre-announced, non-hidden budget and the administration is simply asking for $7 billion more than what it said it might ask for undercuts your point still further.

Worst of all, you elide the point that so many critics are saying there was "no plan," which is what started this discussion. I mean, I thank you for acknowledging that there was a plan; now it would be nice to see you say something like, "Yes, the people who say there was no plan are idiots and they embarass me. There was a plan, I just think it was a bad plan." Or poorly implemented.

Acknowledging that only a few months post-invasion that the situation is going well by historical measures for any major occupation would also be nice, but I suppose that's asking too much.

Still, straightforward, blunt honesty would do a lot to elevate the debate. And to make it easier to take the administration's critics seriously.

To me -- all this talk about the Iraq electrical grid? I don't think there was anyone who knew the extent of how bad that thing was!! Soldiers are beginning to report that folks throughout Iraq (out of Bagdad) now have more power than they did pre-war.

We had a plan to protect that grid, keep it up... we just didn't know the depth to which, there wasn't really a working grid.

We protected it, it just wasn't there to be protected. Saw a report the other day, on the 24/7 work that is being done on that thing, and my mouth dropped opened with the entire story.

Protect and defend, we did.... now? The PLAN has been modified to "build" that grid.

Dean, credibility is something that generally has to be earned, rather than assumed. I find that particularly true today. You slight my credibility because I have generalized somewhat about R and non-R positions. Let me gather a few quotes from just this comment list:

"The majority of Democrats seeking the presidency have sold their souls to the devil"

"But even you admit there is a disconnect between reality and a lot of Democrats these days:

"Since a goodly portion of the Democrats seem to resolutely ignore this sort of thing, we have to put them down as unsensible thinkers"

Dean, at NO point in my comment did I say "no plan". I said "shoddy financial planning", and "not according to plan". Why do you use quotations to generate a statement I did not make? There is a reason...there is a certain segment of the population (see how I do not generalize :) who, upon reading a piece with which they have disagreement, see things that aren't there.

Or maybe we've all just read so much of this stuff that it's hard to tell things apart.

Your very first written sentence to me was to call me, in effect, something of a liar. Is that not what credibility concerns? Many would consider that to be a personal attack.

In any case...the $87 billion follows an initial $80 billion allocated, making costs so far around $167 billion (although it varies)...and there will be at minimum of five years more of this. Those five years will likely be at somewhat reduced cost, but we must retain a range of planning options.

In addition, over such a long time frame, we will see _dramatic_ reductions in the Reserves and National Guard, because being deployed for a year or two at a time, in a foreign, pre-emptive war, is not something that the part-timers signed up for. They signed up to defend America, here.

Many of us "lefties" can't help but genuinely wonder how much we could have done in the world with $10 billion in carrot, instead of several hundred billion in stick.

Ross, you "lefties" have tried the carrot thing for decades. And what it got us was a smoking hole in the middle of New York Ciry. And a large hoe in the side of the USS Cole. And embassies in Kenya, etc. converted to rubble.

You "lefties" have NEVER hesitated to spend umpteen billions of dollars on your whims, yet now you scream when Bush spends a few on something that will result in greater security for the US.

You "lefties" scream that "Bush knew" and "Bush failed to connect the dots" and therefore failed to prevent Sept 11. Yet here he is trying to avoid July 17 --- that's when Seattle harbor flashes into radioactive vapor --- and you are doing everything you can to stop him.

Ross,

What would be good financial planning? After all, we didn't know (a) how hard the Saddamites would fight (b) the condition of the infrastructure and (c) how long it would take us to gain general control over the entirety of Iraq...how do you make a plan for that?

What you do is what my father called a SWAG - Sophisticated Will-Ass Guess. A great deal of planning goes along this line.

And as for the total cost; wasn't the cost of two planes in NY about 100 billion dollars, just in NY? Plus 3,000 lives....it does, as Fred points out, ring a bit hollow this sudden love for fiscal discipline from the left which would, if it could, spend a trillion dollars more per year on its own little projects....

Well, since you asked, I produce a range of offset-printed communications and marketing projects to the tune of about $5-8 million in a busy year. And I also fix my own car.

Hellloooo, the law of unintended consequences is THE reason why this policy may be a horribly bad idea. Iraq (and the world) is unquestionably a better place without Saddam running a country. And, in spite of the fact that the conquest of Iraq went about as well as could have been imagined and that reconstruction is going reasonably well, no one could possibly anticipate or plan for such an adventure. The salience of the policy is the extreme hubris it requires as well as the public deception that enabled it.

Surely you “action people” out there must know that the possibilities for tragic consequences increase exponentially with the size of the project. I couldn’t give a crap about the daily count or whether we’re making good progress by historical standards (as if there were such a thing). Remember when Saddam (and Osama) were America’s buddies in the last hubris laden (i.e, Republican) administration’s battle against evil?

Since the administration is so good at staying on message, which precludes admitting they’ve ever been wrong (a ridiculous position in itself), most of the self-criticism of the policy has come from those who actually have to implement it. General William Wallace famously said, "The enemy we're fighting is a bit different from the one we had war-gamed against." But the surprise $87 billion budget request months after the invasion is perfect demonstration of either failed planning (in my business, people who approach me with a plan but no budget get sent back to finish the job), or political duplicity (or both).

Forgive me, but questioning the media for reporting on “man bites dog” instead of “dog bites man” seems a bit stupid. I think they’ve done a fine job of being national cheerleaders throughout the invasion phase of war; there’s no reason to expect them not to cover what people will tune in to see (the beautiful free market, right?) and that’s not building latrines. And to criticizing the Democrats for bitching when they’re being told essentially nothing except when to pay the bills and how much to pay, is just plain silly (especially since Republicans are also bitching). Can you even imagine what the neocons would be doing with a Clinton pre-emptive invasion without the sanction of the Congress, the UN Security Council, or NATO, putting 150,000 of America’s sons and daughters in harm’s way and in body bags arriving home daily? They were nearly apoplectic (or pretended to be) over a couple-dozen cruise missiles (by the way fred, as far as the two terms of CONSERVATIVE foreign policy prior to this administration, you and the world never had it so good).

Shep

Bush had the sanction of Congress, as hard as it to believe. And yes the law of unintended consequences but that cuts both ways, I think that the consequences in doing nothing (that is continuing 8 years of Clinton and 4 years of Bush1) would be steep as evidenced by the the big gian hole in NY City. Am I willing to see 3,000 fellow citizens (or more) vaporized becuase don't want to shake up those mad mullahs, don't want to hurt anyones feelings. BLAH BLAH BLAH. It was not our job to prove WMD, that would have been Husseins job to prove and CREDIBLY work with weapons inspectors to verify that he had none. He had 12 years to do this. He never did. Maybe it was giant joke, joke on us, he didn't have them. Except the Joke is really on Baathists and now the screws are starting to turn on Syria and Saudi Arabia. Funding is drying up and I even read a story this weekend where "Palestinians" are begining to get fed up with Arafat. Oh that's right Bush lied. Give me a break.

Hey Shep:

1) Fair enough, let's count you among those who actually do produce something for a living, and are directly familiar with the unwieldiness of large-scale projects. You seem to be shifting focus slightly to assail not the planning and handling of the project so much as the decision to undertake it in the first place, which weirdly enough makes me think of you as more credible than before.

2) I understand your concerns about the Law of Unintended Consequence. The simplistic means I get around it is to envision all the acceptable end-states of the world, and fold back the branches of the decision tree which are unacceptable to me. I will not accept that the US will always and forevermore hide behind some porous frontier barrier waiting for the first successful nuclear attack against us. I will not accept that we must abandon our pluralistic society and embrace sufficient Islam/socialism/etc. to placate any enemies which wish to harm us. I do not believe that any amount of caving to Palestinians or North Koreans or whomever, or dropping our ridiculous tariffs, however helpful, will eliminate the threat to us.

When I continue far enough down this track, I am forced to conclude that our only option, short of total capitulation or intergalactic space travel, is to deal with Islamist and other terrorist-supporting threats in precisely the forward-leaning way that Bush's team appears to be doing.

To paraphrase Sir Arthur Conan Doyle / Sherlock Holmes: once you eliminate all of the unworkable geopolitical strategies, what remains, however unappetizing/risky, is the strategy you must pursue.

Is there an all-encompassing alternative strategy you'd care to advance? I'm not being sarcastic . . . I honestly haven't heard any remotely credible alternative strategy coming from the Left. I'm open to hearing your thoughts.

3) I don't think any duplicity is involved in coming out with an $87B funding request at this stage. I don't believe it was in the administration's best interest to make a wild-assed guess prior to knowing the conditions on the ground, especially given the Democrats' penchant for sniping. Why give your opponent a tree limb to batter you with when he's already done such a job with the baseball bat? It would be irrational. Per Kevin's post: Congress had every opportunity to hold out for an estimate before they approved the use of force, and opted not to.

I see several various reasons why (some) anti-war critics keep changing their lines:

1) (And this is the reason that is the most charitable) They may have realised they were wrong before, and honestly attempting to criticise correctly now. (I have little faith that this is the case for the vast majority of critics... if only because I normally expect people who realise they've made a huge mistake in their criticism to own up to ir.)

2) Obsession with Bush blinding them to the issue - this has overlap with your lack of introspection argument.

3) Some people (not the vast majority, I think, even those affected by #2. On the other hand, I think I'd put Michael Moore, from experience, in the current #3 category as muc has #2) not only realise they're being disingenuous, but they don't care at all. After all, the Proles won't remember what they said six months ago anyway. This despicable view, fortunately, seems rare on the evidence... or maybe I'm being too charitable and interpreting the evidence too nicely. I certainly don't wish to believe that lots of pundits are that vile.

I remember a lot of hullaballoo on the lefty blogs about a document indicating the Bush administration had talked with Halliburton or Bechtel about post-war Iraq rebuilding projects before the war, and how this was "evidence" of a "conspiracy." But it really just shows there was pre-war planning for the post-war.

Yet the same Lefty blogs illogically slam Bush for not having a plan for post-war Iraq.

Bush can't win with the Left - he is slammed for having a plan, and for not having one.

"Is there an all-encompassing alternative strategy you'd care to advance? I'm not being sarcastic . . . I honestly haven't heard any remotely credible alternative strategy coming from the Left. I'm open to hearing your thoughts."

Swordfish (I'm not being sarcastic either).

"I don't think any duplicity is involved in coming out with an $87B funding request at this stage. I don't believe it was in the administration's best interest to make a wild-assed guess prior to knowing the conditions on the ground, especially given the Democrats' penchant for sniping. Why give your opponent a tree limb to batter you with when he's already done such a job with the baseball bat? It would be irrational."

Look up "duplicity".

"Per Kevin's post: Congress had every opportunity to hold out for an estimate before they approved the use of force, and opted not to."

Look up "duplicity".

Shep,

I'm sorry, but you come off as a guy who's chicken...afraid to make a decision because the results of the decision might be worse than the results of not making a decision. I'm sure thats not how it comes out at your company, else you'd be bankrupt by now...but its how you come off.

I could sit here for an hour and list the mistakes of the Bush Administration's conduct of the war in my view...and and the others here could probably give an hour each as well. In the end, however, I am not the President and thus I don't make the call - he does; I hope he calls it right, but even if he calls it wrong I'm still going to back him as long as I can determine that he's trying to do the right thing.

Along these lines, who winds up being elected President next year boils down to that: who is most likely to try and do the right thing on the war? I'm not asking for perfection - heck, in the end I cannot even demand that we win the war; I can only demand that we try our best.

There are bound to be fiascos in this war - we've had them in the past (look up Anzio in World War Two if you want an example of the quintessntial military cluster-fuck) and we'll have them in the future. There is bound to be mistakes in planning, and good plans that go bad through no fault on our part...and we'll also luck out from time to time when we don't deserve it. Such is war - the winner in this deadly activity is he who is best trained, strongest of heart and most able to take advantage of mistakes (ours or theirs, it don't really matter).

Hey Shep:

I looked up "duplicity." No new insights. I have no idea what "Swordfish" means in this context. I've never seen the movie or eaten the fish.

Prior to now, you've generally come across as rational and persuasive. What's with the idiotic sound bites? It's very unlike you to spit single-line Carvillisms in place of reasoned analysis.

Is the arthritis acting up? Why so clipped and unpersuasive?

Sorry, Jonathan, I shouldn’t post after dinner (and cocktails). When you say that the administration didn’t present a budget (that I could have done on the back of an envelop) because they thought they’d get beat up about it, not because they couldn’t do it, I think that meets the definition. Likewise, some of the votes in favor of the administration’s policy which were certainly just insulation against later partisan attacks over being soft (remember Max Cleland?).

Swordfish, John Travolta and Halle Barrie (worth watching for her scenes alone), stories around a black-ops group tasked with tracking down and killing terrorists by any means necessary. Not pretty but a highly intelligent alternative (IMHO) to the conquering other countries.

Mark, when it comes to the sort of decisions made at 1600 Pennsylvania, guilty as charged. I hope I never have to make decisions where other people’s live hang in the balance. I don’t expect perfection from my President, just a modicum of honesty about intentions for the office during the campaign and public policy matters once they get there. To steal a quote, Bush has been a “miserable failure” on both counts.

Hey Shep:

That makes much more sense, and thanks for the clarification.

duplicity: deliberate deceptiveness in behavior or speech; double-dealing.

1) I suppose you could make a case that the congressmen who voted in favor of the Iraq authorization were duplicitous. I would say they were hedging their bets. That the Left sucks on defense is an article of faith, just as the Right sucks on cronyism.

2) I don't perceive Bush's reluctance to publish an estimated cost as duplicitous. They aren't claiming one number and then delivering another. They're simply saying that it's not yet prudent to speculate. That's my interpretation, at least.

3) The "Swordfish" scenario, as you describe it, is intellectually appealing but I think it falls short in a number of regards. Our real-world surgical interventions have looked as much like the Iran "hostage rescue" as the Israeli triumph at Entebbe. Our human intelligence-gathering capacity is probably the worst of any industrialized nation. And surgical removal of this year's leaves does little to starve tomorrow's roots.

I don't believe we'll see a noticeable improvement in our ambient threat climate until after we reduce the perception of inequality of opportunity (not God forbid, inequality of result) around the world, by working to eliminate regimes which suppress freedom. When we become known as the poster child of free trade and meritocracy, most of the nontheocratic objections to our way of life will self-cancel.

Meteorologists and geologists tell us to be grateful for tornados, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes/tsunamis, lightning strikes, etc., because if Mother Earth were not able to correct slight imbalances with these kinds of subtle phenomena, there's no telling what kind of spectacular, globe-shattering catastrophes would eventually result. I think 9/11 was a small signal tremor. We need to actively improve the world before the tectonic plates start seriously shifting.

"Our real-world surgical interventions have looked as much like the Iran "hostage rescue" as the Israeli triumph at Entebbe. Our human intelligence-gathering capacity is probably the worst of any industrialized nation."

Agreed. Although that image is partly because we seldom hear about the successes. So how far do you think $87 billion, with the world's good will prior to Iraq, would've gone to correct that?

"And surgical removal of this year's leaves does little to starve tomorrow's roots."

The root problem can't be solved through force at all. Meanwhile, failed, dead terrorists make lousy recruiters. And, from a recruiting standpoint, unless and until it becomes plainly obvious to Arabs that this is truly a war for liberation (with no self-serving ulterior motives) George Bush's policies might resemble Osama bin Laden's wet dreams.

Hey Phil:

I'm sure the successes (like our current 2+ year run without any successful Islamist terrorist attacks on US soil) are underreported, but I think a combination of our overreliance on technology and appropriate-for-a-democracy squeamishness about the methods of hard-core intelligence gathering have handicapped, and will continue to handicap, our intelligence-gathering efforts such that no amount of intelligence operations and cash bribes will ensure our security.

Not to belabor this, but what specific initiatives/capabilities would the $87B buy us which would better prosecute the war on terror than the simple act of setting fire to the ground beneath the terrorists' feet? We already have a $25M price on Saddam's head, and I'm not sure how much we're offering for Osamas. Presuming that you would direct much of the $87B towards bribing current and potential Islamic terrorists to turn, I think we're already in their region of inelasticity.

I take it from your "good will" comment that you don't see Old Europe and us as inexorably ideologically opposed. I think that we are. I think that we have a strong vested interest in eliminating the economic inequality which is one of the root causes of terrorism, without unnecessarily sacrificing our cushy lifestyles, while Old Europe has a strong vested interest in maintaining a post-colonial colonialism on the backs of the Third World, no matter the cost. I think France is the greatest enemy we face today.

Part of the root problem can't be solved through force, I will grant you that. I see free trade as preventative medicine and military force as surgery. Responsible medicine includes them both and uses either where appropriate. While providing better opportunities to the Third World will go a long way towards solving the long-term problem (a task which will be accomplished when we resolve never to subsidize a job which the free market isn't demanding), a substantial number of Islamist terrorists and their client states cannot be overcome by good diet and exercise. They will have to be removed--as delicately as possible--from the body of our planet.

Jonathan, but we didn’t, set “fire to the ground beneath the terrorist’s feet in Iraq. We conquered a Baath-party, secular, totalitarian government that was mostly at odds with the Wahabi fundamentalist fanatics that were behind 9-11. If we wanted to hotfoot the terrorists, we would have invaded: 1) Pakistan, 2) Saudi Arabia, 3) Indonesia, 4) Yemen... Or, more sanely, we could have pulled all the diplomatic and black-ops stops to track down and neutralize bad actors, shut down the Madrasas, strongly encourage allies like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Kazikstan and Russia to, at least, stop oppressing their own Muslim populations ($87B provides for a lot of carrot and a lot of stick). And, most importantly, we could have asked our good buddy and great beneficiary to pull their settlements and soldiers out of the West Bank with the carrot of 100% border-security guarantee and the stick of an elimination of $5B+ in annual aid.

This war was about strategically undermining Arab powers that the neocons find subversive to US and Israeli interests. And, heartwarmingly, “What if we can start to transform the region into our own likeness, in the bargain?”

"Old Europe has a strong vested interest in maintaining a post-colonial colonialism on the backs of the Third World"

Where labor is concerned, there are no countries (or regions) anymore. It's an array of business interests, many multi-national, that want dollar-a-day labor.

Hey Shep:

That's a somewhat valid assessment. You can make a case that at one point in its history Iraq was an effective firewall against Islamic fundamentalism. Based on 9/11, I believe that its effectiveness in that role is at an end and that its greatest value is as both a potential launchpad for further attacks (the need for which, ironically, is reduced by the fact of our presence in Iraq) and as an example of America giving a c--p about the plight of Middle Easterners.

Let's look at your preferred targets. Before doing so, remember than you either get to use diplomacy or black ops on a country-by-country basis. No nation will respond to you diplomatically while you're in the process of violating its territorial sovereignty:

1) Pakistan: nuclear power, which makes them a much bigger potential threat to us. Also, intervention would have to involve the sweeping destruction of much of the population, since pinpricks would only enrage the Muslims there and around the world. Since Musharaff has not done near the number of humanitarian atrocities that Saddam did, and has in fact been nominally cooperative with our anti-terrorist efforts, any attack here would look both like a US-vs.-world act of aggression and the betrayal of a nominal friend. Huge geopolitical catastrophe without some sort of concrete provocation to justify it.

2) Saudi Arabia: though they most richly deserve summary execution for their ongoing support of Islamist terrorism, invading them would absolutely enrage the Arab street, re-fulfill one of al-Qaida's three core reasons for attacking the US (to get us out of the land of Mecca & Medina) and lay us wide open to worldwide accusations of oil-grabbing.

3) Indonesia: geographically dispersed, ripe to be outraged, I have no reason to believe a campaign there would be any more successful than our efforts in the Philippines.

4) Yemen: no strong opinion here. Wasn't this the country where a Predator took out a sedan-full of terrorists eighteen months ago or so? If so, I'd make the case that all diplomatic and black-ops stops had been pulled out.

I don't seriously believe that any amount of money will change the course of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Kazikstan or especially Russia as materially as the example of the US exercising its military power has in this circumstance. From a game-theoretical perspective, it is to our advantage to appear reasonable and neighborly yet provokable, tough and resolved to defend ourselves. Clinton conveyed the first two convincingly but set back perceptions of the last three to a lower level than they've been since Carter's "administration." Perhaps we've reached an equilibrium where our national security is best ensured by a Republican president's kicking followed by a Democrat's licking. I'd hate to think so, but it would play to their respective strengths.

I don't believe that the neo-cons hope to "transform the region into our own likeness" per se (though in some ways that's pretty appealing--I prefer our version of 'getting stoned' to theirs") so much as it's about helping democracy and capitalism to manifest themselves in the most regionally-appropriate way possible. And I think that's a laudable goal.

There are plenty of countries, and important policy differences persist among them. If there weren't, then all of the major statistics by which we chart economic health would equilibrate to near-parity. What all corporations want, multi-national, national, local--is to pay their employees their market value. And what Leftists typically want is to force corporations to pay employees more than their market value.

No employer in the world would ever seek to pay subminimum wage to the inventor of teleportation, warp speed travel, or the cure for cancer or even the common cold. But the broom-pusher who's

Jonathan, other than a little naiveté about what employers would seek to pay and Clinton’s pre 9-11 ability to go “kicking”, interesting thoughts (love the stoning metaphors). I don’t pretend to know what the most effective carrot vs. stick balance is with respect to the countries that are actually home to Islamic fanaticism. But it strikes me that the administration’s Iraq policy is a product of the beliefs of a handful of very smart but very ideological people (qualities that tend to cancel each other in planning strategy) and not a rational examination of options and best and worst-case scenarios. $87B is just one installment on a policy that could cost more than ten times as much and I think we could have been more effective using those sort of resources to fight our enemies and solidify our friendships without occupying Iraq. That is if we still had a president who knew enough about the world to analyze foreign policy advise and make wise choices.

Hey Shep:

Fair enough. I can't disagree with that, and applaud what I interpret as your willingness to watch and see how events unfold.

My (as-yet-unfounded) belief/hope is that, by implanting the seeds of democratic capitalism in Iraq, we will:

1) Initially destabilize, then ultimately stabilize the region in a lasting way;
2) Secure our place in history as a nation willing to act selflessly from time to time;
3) Bring a well-educated nation of potential trading partners online, and;
4) Ultimately reduce the income-inequality portion of the ambient anti-US hatred to such an extent that we can stand down most of our recent security and civil liberty-reducing investigative measures.

Or, things could just as easily go to hell in a handbasket. If the world ends in a nuclear holocaust because of Bush's foreign policy, I will owe you a Coke.

Deal, Jonathan. And I hope your belief/hope is well-placed and you never have to buy me that Coke. If so, could you make it a Pepsi? I'm guessing they only serve Coke "down there".

Pepsi it is. In fact, I'm betting wine will also be available--if we avoid the Baptist section.