Wow, David Brin has not one, but two terrific points in his
latest post. Here's the first one:
Oh, there is something you are now hearing over and over. The BIG ROVEAN TACTIC is this. Demand that their opponents choose a simple, one sentence strategy for Iraq.
"Well? What would YOU do?"
It is horrendous and a "Have you stopped beating your wife?" question. Because No one-sentence answer will sound mature or sage, given the horrific political, social, military, and moral quagmire that we are inheriting. Moreover, any attempt to avoid giving a one sentence answer sounds equivocating and mealy-mouthed.
Another brilliant Rovean gotcha ploy and dems are falling for it.
There has to be an answer that turns the tables. I suggest this one.
"Obviously, a new team will have to work with allies (once we have regained their trust) and others to come up with new plans. But YOU are twisting and evading the issue.
"The issue is who should be entrusted with the task of finding a way out of this mess?
And then there's a second one that he relegates to the comments section:
There are two ways to describe the confrontation between Congress and the Bush administration over funding for the Iraq surge. You can pretend that it’s a normal political dispute. Or you can see it for what it really is: a hostage situation, in which a beleaguered President Bush, barricaded in the White House, is threatening dire consequences for innocent bystanders — the troops — if his demands aren’t met.
Brin's blog is always interesting, but sometimes I ignore it because it's often more reading than I have the time to do (his comments section can run very, very long). I'm glad I took the time today.
1 comment:
I answered this in Brin's blog, I'll repeat it here:
Here's my quick and "easy" answer to the question, "what would you do?":
1) Establish a draft, doubling or tripling the number of troops in Iraq, and increasing the number of troops tenfold in Afghanistan. Let's get the numbers to do the job. Shock and Awe, baby, shock and awe.
2) Raise taxes to pay for this ungodly mess. During WWII there was a 91% marginal tax on income over $200,000. Compare that to the Bush years where only the extremely rich have made gains. I'd be fair though, everybody gets a tax increase.
3) Mandatory gas rationing, and an extra tax on any vehicle that gets less than 20 miles per gallon (an extra, extra tax on any non-commercial vehicle getting under 12mpg). Higher taxes on gasoline powered recreational vehicles also, and we'll include vintage cars in that catagory. This is just more of a 60 year-old mess created by our our feeling of entitlement about our seemingly endless thirst.
4) Investigations of anything and everything connected with this war. For anyone who was involved in authorizing the torture of prisoners, torture will also be authorized for their questioning.
5) Any and all outsourcing and private contracts will be terminated, possibly with prejudice. The military will again take over any and all operations. Local workers will be used for local work, except for that done by the military for U.S. operations. All monies spent (save for covert operations) will be maintained and recorded in a transparent and auditable manner.
Do I think this will happen? Hell, no. American was never really interested in going to war in Iraq, that's why there's been such an unprecedented level of lies, secrecy and "painless" war financing. The Bush Administration knew that if it were to put the country on an actual war footing, support for this war would dry up like a slug in the desert sun.
Personally, I would question whether even the above would "win" the war in Iraq. I'm rather doubting that even this would do the trick. Bush's insistence on more of the same strikes me as being a lot like a losing gambler who keeps putting more money down because "next time" he'll win.
We made a terrible mess over there and we're never going to fix it with guns and tanks. I think that the best we can hope for is to get out of the way of the Iraqis while they try and figure out if they'd rather kill each other or clean up the mess. If they choose to clean up, they have the oil resources to pay for it (assuming we dont steal them). If they choose to kill each other instead, we'll probably do the more good by providing massive humanitarian relief than we ever could by standing in the middle of the gunfire while "trying" to stop it.
The RadicalModerate asked "What will the consequences of that withdrawal be?" I wasnt quite sure if this was a real question, or a rewording of one of the latest GOP talking points (will the Dems take responsibility for the bloodbath when the U.S. pulls out of Iraq? - which is another have-you-stopped-beating-your-wife question), but I'll treat it as if it is for the sake of making my point.
The Iraqis are not a bunch of children. Once upon a time, mere years ago in fact, they ran their own country; refineries, airports, factories, police stations, etc, and they did it all by themselves. We showed up and busted everything wide open, made a big mess, and pushed people around (and out). If we leave, they may choose to kill each other, or they may choose to rebuild their country. They may choose both. But it will be their choice, made as grown-ups who probably have a pretty good idea of what they want. They may not all agree on the best course, but that's hardly a localized problem now, is it?
If we're really concerned about the Iraqis more than we are about our own skins (and oil thirst), we need to ask this question: Is our presence as much a problem as it is a solution? If the answer is yes, then we need to withdraw and concentrate on humanitarian aid while the Iraqis sort out what's best for themselves.
As for all the hand-wringing about Iran, of course Iran has a right to meddle in regional politics - it's their region! Our attitude is a bit like China showing up and threatening us because we were trying to influence policy in Mexico.
Finally (I've gone on waaay too long), a response to this: "To deter Iran, negotiate (or merely assert) a Middle East nuclear protection treaty, which makes a nuclear attack, by any power, on any Middle Eastern country, grounds for (possibly nuclear) retaliation by the US." As far as I could tell, the only ones making nuclear threats in the middle east was the U.S.
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