Vietnam parallels go overboard real fast, but this really is exactly what Maxwell Taylor identified as the core problem: for a foreign military to defend a government while it is building that government is mutually contradictory, and takes a very long time.

[Even if parody, the cheerleading of chickenhawks grows tedious.]

This isn't a surprise or anything, but it's worth pointing out clearly: the new plan, even with the advantage of a troop surge, is less ambitious than the plan we had in 2005. Wait a couple more years and it will be less ambitious still. That's what we're fighting for.

Kevin's statement presupposes that we still are competent to be the authors of our own fate in Iraq, that we can still decide when and how we will withdraw and not have the decision made for us as, for example, was done for the British at Dunkirk.

But, as for example, Col. Patrick Lang has pointed out, the supply lines up from Basra to Baghdad are vulnerable; and John Robb has stated that the window of opportunity for a withdrawal from Iraq passed in about 2005 or so.

If violence is going down in Iraq, why is our ambassador worried that the Iraqis working for us there will quit unless they are given a visa?

The American ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan C. Crocker, has asked the Bush administration to take the unusual step of granting immigrant visas to all Iraqis employed by the U.S. government in Iraq because of growing concern that they will quit and flee the country if they cannot be assured eventual safe passage to the United States.

Duncan Kinder: "Kevin's statement presupposes that we still are competent to be the authors of our own fate in Iraq, that we can still decide when and how we will withdraw"

This is a fascinating take on the situation. In other words, the plan for Iraq, what we are fighting for, is to sustain the appearance of not being humiliated for as long as possible.

I'm willing to agree with everything Al says as long as he changes his conclusion. Since the surge, and in fact the whole war, has been such a startling success and we have achieved every goal we ever dreamed of and even a few extras, and there is no more violence in Iraq nor will there ever be, and democracy is spreading throughout the Muslim world, and we have made the world safe from the WMDS and torture chambers of Hussein, just like Al says, let's bring the troops home now.

Seriously, I email my Congressman every day asking him to bring home the troops.

Wait a couple more years . . .

Uh-huh. Let's just wait. And then wait some more. And maybe more after that.

Enough! What we're fighting for now is George Bush's vanity. Nothing more, nothing less. The "plan" is neither less nor more ambitious than any previous "plan" because none of these are plans at all. They're simply marketing gimicks to try to keep some fraction of the populace on board with the war.

Bush has no intention of carrying out this or any other plan. His only goal (and that of his Republican enablers) is to hand this war to the next president. Then he and they can screech from the sidelines about how that president "lost" Iraq and the Missle East.

This isn't a plan--it's a delaying tactic. I'm moved to quote Stanley from The Office: "Son, this here is a run-out-the-clock situation."

That's all the White House is doing. Their plan is to leave the mess in Iraq to the next President to solve, and then they will blame him for the inevitable catastrophe that follows. But to mix my metaphors, for the hot potato to end up in somebody else's lap, they gotta keep the music running until November, 2008.

So that's what they're doing. The Pentagon can come up with a battle plan for any situation--hell, that's their job description. So, every time the Bush Administration needs to keep the music playing for another 3-6 months, they tell the Pentagon to come up with a new song.

But really, they are just running out the clock to November 2008. Because then, the potato they planted, picked, cleaned, and baked in a 400 degree oven, will no longer be in their hands. So, hey, whatever gets burned after then? Someone else's fault!

When John McCain stands on the floor of the Senate, blasting the (likely Democratic) 2008 president for the chaos in Iraq, or for the terrorist attack that came from the Bush-ignored Al Quaeda in Pakistan, it will really be Mission Accomplished for the Bush Administration. They ran out the clock, and passed the buck to the next President.

This war will last until GB has passed away. Trials for war crimes cannot commence until after the war is over. There won't be much point then.

sufficiently annoyed

Nice piece of thought-policing there, "moderator".

Al posted that. He is incapable of thought. How can it be "thought-policing"?

Al posted that. He is incapable of thought. How can it be "thought-policing"?
Posted by: DJ

He's protecting your thoughts from impurities.

He's protecting your thoughts from impurities.

Brainless gainsaying and propaganda, more like. And if that's your cup of tea, you're welcome to it. Go start your own blog, and you can let it be overrun by unthinking idiots such as Al, egbert, and mhr.

I would be very much surprised if any serving military officers, from Gen. Petraeus down to the majors and lieutenant colonels serving in Iraq, produced plans to do other than what the White House specifies as its objectives there. Nor do I expect more than one or two of them to come close to stating publicly that the objectives are unattainable.

The uniformed military is in an impossible position. More specifically, they have trained their whole careers to fight wars, and would lose their careers if they declined to back the administration. On the other hand most of them are aware that backing the administration, supporting the civilian leadership of the country, requires wasting the lives of many soldiers under their command.

Doing that indefinitely -- which is essentially what the latest rumored plan calls for -- cannot be attractive (though military officers are sometimes able to rationalize such things). Sacrificing careers voluntarily is just not done. Moreover the military's immediate civilian overseer, Secretary of Defense Gates, must be constrained by the knowledge that if he were to resign the influence of the Vice President would again become dominant in the administration, with unpredictable consequences (for example with respect to Iran).

There is a critical and little-mentioned difference between this situation and the one in Vietnam decades ago. In Vietnam the decision to withdraw American forces was widely known to have been made several years before the last combat units left. This had many disadvantages, but at least gave the military guidance as to the national objectives it had not work toward.

No such decision has been made with respect to Iraq, and none appears to be forthcoming. The combat situation in Iraq may be analogous in some ways to that in Vietnam circa 1972, and the political atmosphere in the United States is heading in that direction as well. As far as the Bush administration (and the Maliki government also), though, it's still 1967.

This increases the odds that an American withdrawal from Iraq will be undertaken in conditions of protracted crisis, producing great bitterness here at home and imposing higher costs on our men in Iraq than they would otherwise have to bear.

@ Derelict: Enough! What we're fighting for now is George Bush's vanity. Nothing more, nothing less.

Which is exactly what our forefathers feared and why they put the power over the military outside of one person and one office and gave it to the legislature.

Is anyone paying attention to this besides commenters on blogs?

He's protecting your thoughts from impurities.

I love it how dishonest Bush apologists -- but I repeat myself -- scream "echo chamber!!!!1!" when they're called on parroting the spew of their own dead-ender echo chamber (how many of which host comments at all, Mr. Impurity of Thought?).

Memo to Red State Mike: We welcome debate from honest conservatives.

You, "ex-liberal," the various non-parody incarnations of "Al", and your neocon bootlicking ink don't qualify; it's that "honest" part that gets you every time.

If the brass cared about the lives of the men and women under their command, they'd tell Bush to go fuck himself with this run-out-the-clock bullshit. How many more people are going to die until we admit we're done and leave? How do you ask someone to be the last person to die for a mistake?

Clap louder!

Stay the quagmire!

The overarching goal of all this posturing and planning is to give cover to the Bush administration by pushing the end of the war past the end of Bush's term, so he can claim he didn't lose the war, but that the next president did.

It ain't gonna work, the polls show as much, but Bush being Bush and Rove being Rove they will continue to sacrifice our American men and women in uniform to that pipe dream because they are partisan, selfish, arrogant b*stards.

No charges for doctor in Katrina hospital deaths

Too bad, so sad, no "Fitzmas" for wingers this year.

Kevin Drum >"...That's what we're fighting for."

Not at all

Control of oil is what it is ALL about, everything else is a sideshow

It doesn`t matter if you want to admit it or not

"There are three kinds of men:
1. The ones that learn by reading.
2. The few who learn by observation.
3. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves." - Will Rogers

Why does America have to protect Iraqis from themselves? Get out of Iraq tomorrow and impeach and imprison Bush and Cheney as war criminals!

Derelict: "What we're fighting for now is George Bush's vanity. Nothing more, nothing less."

Actually, I think the situation is more complicated than that. Iraq is the biggest foreign policy disaster in US history. Worst ever. What that means to me is that, frankly, we are damned if we stay, we are damned if we leave. I think liberals make a mistake to imagine that all our problems will be over once the US withdraws its troops even assuming plans for a withdrawal existed, as Zathras points out.

But we will leave a mess behind. This wicked invasion has created a instabliilty in a region that hates the US and that has control over a resource on which on our economy depends. Al Quada may be stronger than ever.

If we leave, we leave a mess that could have graver consequences in the future. If we stay, we remain in a known mess. The choice to stay in Iraq is a way of avoiding the reality that we have created. It's a grim, real, life-and-death version of the old snap-your-fingers-to-keep-the -elephants joke.

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney should be thrown out of office and stripped of their pensions for the damage they have wreaked on the US and they should be tried as war criminals for the damage they have caused in Iraq.

...yep, that should read "...snap-your-fingers-to-keep-the elephants-AWAY" joke. *sigh*

I really shouldn't IM with my daughter while writing a WM post. Any other errors above can be attributed to the same cause, ADDTIM, attention deficit due to IM-ing.

Duncan Kinder >"...as for example, Col. Patrick Lang has pointed out, the supply lines up from Basra to Baghdad are vulnerable; and John Robb has stated that the window of opportunity for a withdrawal from Iraq passed in about 2005 or so."

With all due respect to those gentlemen (and I read both regularly) your proposition is simple crap, devoid of a connection to reality. You and they have fallen into a common rut by assuming that there is something other than reality, and your view of things is absolutely correct. Political correctness rules the day.

The physical reality is that the sands of Iraq can be turned into glass in a very short time. All possibilities between that outcome and your patty cake we are such losers version can be realized should the U.S. military choose to do so.

What controls is WILL POWER, not some group of whiney long distance observers & their oh so polite desire to be liked by one and all. You and all others of a like loser mindset need to wake up and do a reality check.

Going into Iraq was a strategic & tactical mistake. I was & am still against the whole "Heartlands, Rimlands" & "Get The Oil Now !" mindset. But I am a realist. What can be done is what can be done irrespective of the wishes of a bunch of sideline observers.

Quit being so negative and look at reality instead of your own belly button. Warfare is a very brutish, messy, nasty business but once it starts the whiners need to STFU and sit down.

There`s several chairs over there & I suggest you take the one with your name on it ASAP, otherwise you are just in the way of the adults.

"For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill" - Sun Tzu

Regardless of the reasons why the United States chose to invade Iraq or even why a US presence remains there today, it is clear that the Bush Administration is putting too many of its resources—OUR resources— into remaining there. To date, the war has cost over $340 billion dollars—money which could have been spent much more wisely and with better end results. It is estimated, for example, that the expenditure of a mere $19 billion would eliminate starvation and malnutrition worldwide. In a time when the current defense budget is $522 billion, the goal of eradicating world hunger is clearly well within reach. Thus, it is clear that the occupation of Iraq needs to end, and it needs to end now without regard to what this will do to United States interest in Iraq’s oil. There are simply much more important issues that need to be addressed.

daCascadian:"The physical reality is that the sands of Iraq can be turned into glass in a very short time. All possibilities between that outcome and your patty cake we are such losers version can be realized should the U.S. military choose to do so.

What controls is WILL POWER, not some group of whiney long distance observers & their oh so polite desire to be liked by one and all. You and all others of a like loser mindset need to wake up and do a reality check."

Wow. Do I read correctly? You are proposing that the US could and should turn the sands of Iraq to glass if that is necessary to achieve an American victory there? The country we went to LIBERATE???

Have you no sense of perspective? In what reality do you imagine that would be a Victory? Or is the reality--that the US is being pussywhipped by Muslim lunatics--so disturbing that you turn to these fantasies of our power and might as a way to sooth and reassure a troubled heart?

Warfare is a very brutish, messy, nasty business but once it starts the whiners need to STFU and sit down.

Sure, tough guy, us wimps should just stay out of the way so you can use nukes and concentration camps and whatever else you want to achieve "Victory!" You'd have made a good nazi back in 1944.