Hello Carl. You write: "Since the Iraq invasion, Bush has not made a single "action" indicating that he failed to learn his lesson. Quite the contrary. He ended sanctions against Libya. He failed to push for sanctions against Iran. He failed to punish North Korea. He didn't increase the size of the US military. He gave up on conquering Falloujah. He didn't have Sadr arrested at all costs.
I disagree. I think the examples you use for "learning his lesson" in Iraq, are largely limitations that he knew he had before invading. Before we discuss this, however, why don't we define the "lesson" he needed to learn.
I have always maintained that Bush fails to understand the limits of American military power. When we look at that issue, however, we must also put it in context or it loses focus. We have to ask; the limits of "American military power to do what," and "the limits of American military power against what kind of resistance?"
The utter foolishness of Bush/Cheney with regard to the use of our forces in Iraq is what brings many of us to the conclusion that he fails to understand the limits of such power. In that context we are clearly talking about learning that unless a nation is willing to virtually brutalize the entire populaton, conventional military force employed in a foreign nation cannot effectively suppress the impassioned resistance of even a strong minority of people who are willing to fight and die to oppose foreign control. Unless the goal of such occupation is clear, worthy and embraced by the people of the occupying nation, the mission will fail.
In that context, therefor, you now say that he has learned his lesson and you offer the rhetorical question and conclusion; "[t]hen how come he hasn't invaded Iran or North Korea already? If your analysis of Bush were correct, we'd have invaded all these countries already," as support.
I suspect, however, from reading the examples that you offer to support your "learning" allegation, that you confuse Bush's learning the limits of American military power with Bush's understanding the political factors which impede a president's use of such power. In that sense Bush/Cheney could fully believe that we COULD do things with the military force we possess and yet recognize that the POWER to call that force into play was limited because the powers of war are subject to constitutional and political limitations. They are, of course, additionally subject to getting reelected every four years and guess what-election coming in a few weeks.
So let's look at the practical, political and constitutional limitations and ask whether the Bush/Cheney brain trust could reasonably expect to satisfy a desire to invade another country. First, the practical.
Our military manpower is stretched so thinly because of Iraq that we are extending the service of our troops beyond the dates many of them were scheduled to leave the service. We are calling forces out of Europe and South Korea simply because we have to fill our troop needs in Iraq. We are also calling back specialty personnel who had completed their active duty service obligations and extending the tours of the National Guard troops serving in Iraq. And it's not getting better in Iraq. Now, in the Ghostebusters sense, "Who you gonna call?"
What about the political and constitutional limitations? The invasion of another country takes the cooperation of Congress and that won't occur without the support of the American people. At this time the public is fed up with the cost of the Iraqi war in terms of lives and treasure. In order to expand on the Bush policy, he'll need their support in order to institute a draft, secure the funding and get the military to play along.
With an election on the way do you think they want to institute a draft? If they did do you really think the congress would go along? The climate for the aggressive use of American military force is bad. But remember that it could change in an instant if we had a Russian school-like terrorist attack here at home.
Still, you allege that Bush's failure to increase the size of the military, maintain sanctions on Libya, punish N. Korea or start the sanction process against Iran are due to his learing the "lesson." You fail to acknowledge that there are many more likely explanations for each of those actions. They are all too obvious but I will list a few.
Libya? It's true that he lifted sanctions. Of course he had no basis for invading and occupying Libya, especially after Libya gave up a nuclear program that was going nowhere and had therefor made itself a "good example."
Failing to push for sanctions against Iran? What does that tell us? First, he would need world support to secure such sanctions and the world had earlier become unhappy with the sanctions against Iraq. Second, the world has figured out what Bush means when he asks them to make resolutions and start on the sanctions path. They learned that by watching him spin their actions against Iraq into a "sanction" for war. Why would Bush push for something that would likely fail and embarrass him?
Punish North Korea? Not even Bush is stupid enough to act against N. Korea when there's nothing there that we want, the resistance will likely cause costly losses, and its neighbor China is the real long term threat.
So why look for the zebra when you find a few hoofprints on American soil? It's probably a horse unless you can rule a horse out. That leaves us with your other "examples" offerred to proving "quite to the contrary;" i.e. the "giving up" on conquering Falloujah, and the not having "Sadr arrested at all costs."
These examples could arguably reveal a glimmer of Bush learning the "lesson" of the limits of American military power or they may only show that he was not willing to pay major political costs here at home. The "conquering" of Falloujah would have basically required bombing the city and all those within it to rubble, or a long and bloody use of American forces against an Alamo-like group of defenders. In either event he would be out of office on January 20th.
The "having Sadr arrested at all costs" would have likely guaranteed the demise of the puppet government we installed and would have likely derailed elections and increased the level of violence from the religious folks who want the infidels out. These may be costs that he was willing to pay, but they might also have fatally wounded his reelection hopes.
Have you got any more compelling arguments that would support your allegation that he learned his lesson? If not then I'll stick with my "laughable..challenge [to] you about logic."
As far as the "psychological drivel;" you're right. It's just that I have a hard time figuring out why such people as Pat Robertson will get up on national television and lambast the Cheney/Bush foreign policy with passion. He was much stronger in his anger at the "neocon" approach than most democrats and yet he, like you, said that he would vote for Bush. In order to justify that seeming leap of logic, he had to adopt the "no Kerry" slogans put forth by the RNC.
The best argument you can come up with for voting for Bush is that Kerry's Iraq position is similar to Bush's. That's weak. Even if Kerry had the same initial position on Iraq, at least he hasn't yet revealed the Bush team's total inability to alter course or act competently.
It's not difficult to fathom why they're the "gang that couldn't shoot straight." I've seen too many reports of critical activities in Iraq being placed in the hands of young Republicans whose only qualification is that they passed the "loyalty oath" test. I've seen too many examples of blind ideology resisting reality in the policy setting and implementation aspects of the Iraqi occupation. I've seen too many examples of narrow perspectives blocking out the big picture from Bush/Cheney and their cabinet. I've seen too many instance of Powell being shunted aside when he was clearly trying to de-radicalize the neocons.
Perhaps the most damning indictment of all, however, is the one you hung on Bush when you said that Bush wouldn't have substantially changed course because, "t would have been politically impossible for Bush to have done anything much different from what he's done in Iraq since the invasion.
Hey, call me picky but when someone pursues a failed policy that's carried on the sacrifice of the lives, health and well-being of our troops for political reasons, then I'm NOT going to vote for that man. He's not the man his father was, he's not a man who'll make a "Profiles In Courage" chapter in anyone's book and he's not worth the lives of one more American soldier.
So I think I'll have to stick with my initial assessment that, "like a gambler in so deeply he feels he can't afford to quit he'll simply try to find ways to keep going while he waits for something "good" to change the landscape."
And I'll not vote for a man who, when he is finally forced to leave, will "have driven a wedge into our country that will take years or decades to undo, he'll have set the cause of terrorism forward tremendously and he'll have created a more dangerous, less trusting and more divided civilized world."
And, like Pat Robertson, if the political party labels were reversed on Kerry and Bush and everything else remained the same, I doubt if you'd be voting for Bush either. Ed |
