When Benchmarks Measure Nothing

Bachmann should have given Iraqis more time It would seem to me that Bachmann should have given Iraqis more time before we, Americans, give them more time.

Or, she could have just pretended to be the maverick, John McCain, who, with the help of some 100 soldiers, couple helicopters and a dozen Humvees greeted some “preempted” Iraqis in a market the other day, and actually managed to buy stuff from them.

To which the Iraqi shopowner responded “In Dollars, we trust!”

They Measure Iraqi commitment While I’ll agree that the benchmarks CONGRESS chose to measure success have little to do with US military efforts, surge or no surge, they do measure the effectiveness (willingness) of the Iraqi parliment to take control of thier country.  I beleive that was what congress wanted to know.  IIRC, during the US debate on the bill, the Iraqi parliment was planning a recess… Bad form.  The fact that they have yet to make progress on the legislative items in the benchmark does not bode well for them regarding future US support.

The military metrics you crave are in fact being measured, as demonstrated by the O’Hanlon data, it’s just that they are not currently tied to future war funding yet.

The Bush Quagmire After a couple years of the Iraq Adventure, some treasonous disloyal Dems started saying “Iraq is a quagmire”.  Dear Leader Cheney  responded that there were barrels…er, gallons…er,  tons of progress, so much oil…er,  progress as to be unimaginable.  But more disloyal treasonous Americans started to say “Quagmire!”, and ever-clever Bushco came up with the idea of measuring all that Iraq progress by “Benchmarks” (but NOT deadlines!). (I think the famous benchmarks are those proposed by Bushco, with the “oil law” being particularly “crucial”.)

But what exactly is the purpose of the “benchmarks?” To measure progress?  So if the benchmarks were met,  would the troops supposedly start withdrawing, or would they be staying indefinitely in now obviously “improving” Iraq as a lottery prize for Bushco?  And if the benchmarks weren’t met, then wouldn’t that prove “quagmire” and mean the troops should start withdrawing as well?  Or does failure to meet the benchmarks mean even more “need” for the troops? 

Also, were the benchmarks a something the Iraqis wanted to meet, or didn’t want to meet?  Who told them the “meaning” of success or failure?  Mr Articulate Dyslexic?  Hope they took notes. 

So we’re “measuring” benchmarks (to be entirely performed by a supposedly sovereign government over which we have no direct “control”) without knowing or having agreed what will happen if the benchmarks are or aren’t met!  As the Army boys say:  Situation Normal, All F**ked Up!

I sure am glad the Congressional Repubs held out for this helpful “Benchmark” law instead of the withdrawal dates the Dems proposed.  Cause you can never “measure” enough….and you always find yourself back at square one!  From the Repub carpenter’s manual: measure twice, cut…never.

I wander as I wonder Nice bit of oil-based writing, at the top, Parthian. Skillful.

Will I ever encounter a liberal, or any sort of staunch from-the-left Iraq war opponent, who:

a. seems to understand the arguments made against the idea that war was crucially and morally indefensibly about oil; and

b. responds to them?

They must exist. If the Ivory-billed Woodpecker exists, as it may, anything can.  If it never happens it never happens, we’ll get through it, but the point here is the effect on comic writing like that, and the way it comes across to a portion of the audience.

Shoot In saying “they must exist” I mean, of course, that liberals like that must exist, a la the woodpecker. Not the “it wasn’t about oil” views I’d described.

I fear it could read that way.

We know those arguments and views exist. They’re everywhere. Which is the weird thing about it all. Dense, untouched argumentation wherever you look. And liberals everywhere, hacking at hallucinations.

Big Question The big question has improved significantly since you left Eric.  Can you bring Katie Parry next time?

what if we leave? if we leave the islamists will ride roughshod over all of the Middle east….Iran will attack isreal…isreal WILL strike back…meanwhile the Communist PIG Keith Ellison compares Bush to Hitler…….I would say that any Muslim apologist is playing into  Hitlers dead hands………….The Demoncrats..if they gain the White House, will lead this country, and Isreal, to destruction

I have always wondered… Big question for anyone: I alway wondered by our interest is equated to that of Israel or intertwined with it?

As matter of principle, I get that Israel is our friend, but I’m not so sure if I would send my son to defend them. I would do so if our country errouneously goes to war with another country, because that is us.

Can someone help me here?

Unless We Stage a Real War… Upon reflection, it seems to me we are pursuing the conflict in Iraq on the same basis as we did in VietNam, and not on the basis we have used in previous wars.

War is about death, destruction, and crushing the enemy, no holds barred.  It is horrible, terrible, and has an end because one side or the other is pushed to exhaustion.  Collateral damage is everywhere.  “All’s fair in … war” is not a saying for nothing. At it’s end, people are sick of it, and peace — at last — is welcome.

We use soldiers to do it, armed with the best tools to accomplish this we can gather together. We ask them to win, and swallow hard and accept whatever they do.

This is not the war we are pursuing in Iraq.  And what we are doing cannot be won any more than VietNam. 

But the answer is, in my mind, not to crumple again as we did then.  It is, painfully, to unleash the dogs.  No holds barred.  No politicians allowed to parade “in country.”  And no reporters not willing to live with the troops till then end, either. 

We are at war.  Go to war then, and get it over with.

Easy to talk big sitting in your nice comfortable home in front of your computer.  Why don’t you go to war then?  What are you willing to do to “get it over with”? 

Nobody from Iraq attacked us.  We are not fighting armies like in previous wars.  There isn’t just “one side”.  We are fighting many different factions  including those we’ve trained who have helped one faction or another.

Our military has reached the breaking point.  The military brass has been warning this would happen.  Soldiers have been back to Iraq three and four times without enough rest in between.  The Army hasn’t met it’s recruiting goals the last two months.  It simply is not possible to “unleash the dogs”.  The dogs are exhausted from 5 years of swallowing hard and accepting what they were told. 

It’s time to bring them home.

and one more thing tell the families who have lost their loved ones that they weren’t fighting in “a real war”.

That’s a despicable thing to say.

it is a real war the soldiers want to win..they want to finish the job..anything less would mean the deaths of 3500 trooops would be in vain….only know nothing civilians want us out….politicians muck up everything they touch….and yes…everything in the middle east is intertwined with isreal

for Dora in ww2 soldiers stayed in country until they were killed or wounded enough to go home..there was no time limit…what does one expect when they joined the army?… the army is about killing and destroying things…..a booming job market is one reason the army is having trouble recruiting

Not true From Gen. William Odom:
“U.S. forces have ever been compelled to stay in sustained combat conditions for as long as the Army units have in Iraq. In World War II, soldiers were considered combat-exhausted after about 180 days in the line. They were withdrawn for rest periods. Moreover, for weeks at a time, large sectors of the front were quiet, giving them time for both physical and psychological rehabilitation.”

Is that why you’re not in the Army fighting the war you support–a booming job market? 

That’s a good question, Nora That question about our interests and Israel’s interests.

And it led to some thoughts during the All-Star game  that will have to wait a while to complete. I have to eat. And etc.

I’ll just say, when I hear the idea that we somehow have foolishly let ourselves define our interests as “the same” as those of Israel, it gives me the creeps, and here’s why.

The basic issue with Israel is its survival. That’s the issue that drives its politics and always has. (Why that should be, of course, might pop into a mind.) That’s the idea upon which we have come, it seems, or came at some point, to find ourselves in complete agreement with Israel.

We agree: the destruction of Israel would be a monumental, shattering injustice, the sort of injustice that would have been perpetrated by groups or people or nations prone to them, evidently.

In fact in the conservative  mindset as I’ve come to understand it, it’s a perception of who would be rejoicing and triumphant – of who would be receiving the sacrifice – that explains a whole lot of the emotion you find on the issue.

Israel makes mistakes and in some cases made its situation worse in some sense.  The Jewish extremists are a force. Any involvement of the Christian Evangelicals is a goofy not-helpful element.

But the thing I started and which will have to wait has to do with the whole question of Israel’s creation, and the way it all has evolved afterward, and what I’ve gradually decided about all that, including Western culpability and especially including the Arab response from the start.

It’s an ocean of riches, that whole topic. It’s all about why strongly defending its right to exist is a basic test of integrity.

  (The other way to pass the integrity test on this question is to decide that we should in fact be willing to let that idea go, and acknowledge the hugeness of the mistake, produced by our cherished UN’s very first big decision, taken at a time when the world in its good old stupid way was trying gamely to figure out how make things right for these people while also working out how to make sure that sort of thing never happens again.)

The moral and political integrity point To apporach this issue with integrity, its not enough just to decide that Israel is expendable. You would have to be willing to say it.

It’s not a passing effort to decide, that is, that Israel is expendable and even deservedly so, while pretending to believe it’s not a big issue, or just ignoring the implications for the question as events roll by.

The usual I’d respond, but as usual with paul’s self-conscious, gnomic noodlings, he doesn’t actually SAY anything, and certainly nothing about “benchmarks”. 

But he sure LOOKS very informed, writerly and contempletive.

Well, dora Item 1: Problem: They don’t take folks over 70.  What I am willing to do is back a war fought to win, not to win votes.  Please don’t tell me you think our fighting forces are incapable of winning if they were allowed to fight a no-holds-barred war. The world trembles at the thought of their approach, as did Saddam and his army.  It is still the same army.

Item 2: False.  They attacked us almost DAILY for ten years. And do you mean that we can only win certain kinds of wars, not including the kind we are faced with from al Qaida?  I disagree.  Finally, factions who back one another soon enough disolve when it means their very survival.

Item 3: Our military has not reached a “break point”, period.  If it is stressed, it has as much to do with being handcuffed and not allowed to fight as it can fight — just like Viet Nam.  Undo the handcuffs, and they will say “Let’s go!”, though the pessimists who handcuffed them now say otherwise.

Your words — Not Mine Dora, a fair and honest discussion does not put words in the other person’s mouth.

As my granddaughter, just three, says: “Top it!”

Oh, I can go on too long But I think your little cheap shot there that I don’t say anything in the posts to which you’re responding is kinda stupid. 

I’m saying you and your strident anti-war brethren don’t know the arguments agaisnt the idea that the war was about oil.

Or if you do know them, you don’t know them enough to respond to them.

That seems like saying something. Granted, it’s not about benchmarks. But I offered it in all serouusnjess after reflecting on why your witty writing on oil pissed me off, even though you probably didn’t intend that as an effect on anyone.

handcuffs, good lord…. 1. Our fight against al qaeda isn’t a “war”.  This is foolish Bushism and elevates al qaeda far beyond its actual power and threat.  And it’s interesting how when the military actually had al qaeda “forces” surrounded in the field at Tora Bora we didn’t deploy a single division to round them up.  Kind of weird for a “war”….

2.  Numerous analysts have already declared that for all practical purposes, the ground forces have been “broken” by Bush’s continual overdeployment.  As one active duty general said, “The army is toasted”.  Senators know this, even if you don’t.  The “surge” is the last gasp, it cannot last beyond the end of the year and has completely destroyed all planned troop rotations for good.  It spells the end of active “offensive” operations whether you know it or not or whether you think the boys are supermen or not.

3. Who do you imagine put these supposed “handcuffs” on the miracle working troops?  Bush? Cheney? von Rumsfeld?  Past Centcom commanders? The lib’rul media? The ineffective minority Dems? The French?

Why don’t you indentify some general who espouses your “view” and explain what this general means by “undoing the handcuffs”.  Or is this “strategy” solely that of of Gen J. Handcuffs and the 101st Konservative Keyboard Brigade?

If you want to understand the reality of the situation, try reading an interview with Petraeus.  He’s the biggest advocate Bush could find of a more brutal counter-insurgency strategy and he isn’t saying anything remotely resembling what you’re saying.  Instead, he’s saying there is “no military solution to the insurgency in Iraq”.  What do you suppose he means by that,  Gen Handcuffs?

You seem to think that the American military can do things that its own generals think it cannot.  That means you don’t have a grip on reality, and are advocating from a position of fantasy and wishful thinking, just like most 101st Keyboarders and “nuke ‘em all!” conservatives. 

Fortunately people like you are home sitting in their cozy air-conditioned armchairs reading about the heroic efforts of the Greatest Generation at Omaha Beach, and not sitting anywhere in a position of responsibility.

How depressing… I guess, then, according to this post, having no army to defend us we had better just wring our hands and prepare to die at the hands of the radicals.

Somehow I recall hearing messages like this before.  Washington heard it from royalists.  Lincoln from opponents of the Union.  Americans from nazi sympathizers.  We rejected their messages before.  I hope we will do so again.

You’re the one who said… “unless we fight a real war”.  Those were your words. What have they been fighting in then?  What were those who died fighting in? 

my age keeps me out of the army and the fact i have 3 kids..2 in college..and so on and so on…most troops in europe did not live 180 days…..most units had casulty rates over 100%….how much rest do you think our soldiers get in Iraq???…I would say alot!!!!!..most of them come home for 2 weeks R and R…

Is that what Bush has been doing? fighting a war to win votes? 

Are you willing to back a war by paying more in taxes to take care of the soldiers when they get home and to avoid deficit spending to finance it?

And just what does no-holds-barred mean exactly?  Kill them all?  There have been a number of stories of soldiers themselves saying they don’t know who they are fighting.  They train Iraqi’s that  end up turning on them.  You think that people have “terrorist” tattooed on their forehead so they know they are the enemy?  That’s the problem with an insurgency. 

You are delusional.  The Iraqi’s did not attack us almost DAILY for ten years.  You obviously don’t have any understanding of what is fueling the insurgency.  Our troops are trying to police a civil war. These are not the terrorists that attacked us on 9/11 which was Bush’s justification for invading Iraq.

Here is just one comment about the overstretched military. 

From the Christian Science Monitor: “many retired generals and former Pentagon officials have warned: that repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan are wearing out military personnel and equipment to a worrisome point.

“We’re running out of Army units for the mission,” says Robert Scales, a retired Army two-star general.

The Army is about to be “broken,” he says.”

You don’t know what you talking about,  period.

that’s the point they don’t get much rest in Iraq.  There is no “front” in Iraq.  It is constant danger with no downtime especially the way the surge is being conducted.  And  R&R was affected by the surge.  From Military Times:  “Mitchell said he couldn’t say exactly how many troops will lose out on R&R during the influx of new troops, but he doubts the program will completely stop. …”Obviously, positioning combat forces where they are required will take priority” over the R&R program, Voorhis said.”

You really need to get your facts straight. 

The Extreme Right Authoritarian extremists never get ANY facts right.  They are hostile to facts, frankly.  They don’t “believe” in them.

They just have their unshakeable opinions, as “Veritas” (ha-ha) displays above.  Conservatism is a movement based on “faith”, not empirical knowledge.  Hence its complete failure when forced to operate in the real world.

Unfortunately “conservatism”  has grown so large that the government can no longer function and the nation can no longer reform itself or its policies. 

Again, How Depressing Please see my response to Parthian1 above, as apparently you also believe our army is no longer capable of doing what must be done.

I must say, though, I always take comments by retired generals with some grains of salt. Everyone knows that many of the “old guard” have never bought into the new army methods now being employed.  They may be right, but I do trust more those in active duty who are trying to implement the new approach.

For Future Reference Dora and Parthian1, if you want to engage me in dialogue in future, please refrain from the following phrases or any others like them:

“Easy to Talk Big”
“Nice comfortable home in front of your computer”

“foolish Bushism”
“Gen J. Handcuffs”
“you don’t have a grip on reality”
“a position of fantasy and wishful thinking”
“101st Keyboarders”
“Nuke ‘em all conservatives.”

I consider persons who cannot engage in dialogue without resorting to such gratuitous and insulting phrases not worthy of response from me, as I studiously avoid the drunken bar-room wrangling which this type of dialogue evokes.

Contacted by the Army! What Fun!

Out of the blue, I received a screen from the Army offering to send me info on joining up!

I tried to fill in the blanks to get the info, but got stopped at the date of birth — would not take any year of birth before 1950!

You only listen to Active Duty? Then I take it you agree with Gen. Petraeus when he said “there is no military solution to the insurgency in Iraq”.

drunken bar room wrangling evoked from saying it’s “easy to talk big” and “nice comfortable home in front of your computer”?

Such hyperbole.  Besides, I neither drink nor go to bars.

Bachmann should have given Iraqis more time It would seem to me that Bachmann should have given Iraqis more time before we, Americans, give them more time.

Or, she could have just pretended to be the maverick, John McCain, who, with the help of some 100 soldiers, couple helicopters and a dozen Humvees greeted some “preempted” Iraqis in a market the other day, and actually managed to buy stuff from them.

To which the Iraqi shopowner responded “In Dollars, we trust!”

They Measure Iraqi commitment While I'll agree that the benchmarks CONGRESS chose to measure success have little to do with US military efforts, surge or no surge, they do measure the effectiveness (willingness) of the Iraqi parliment to take control of thier country.  I beleive that was what congress wanted to know.  IIRC, during the US debate on the bill, the Iraqi parliment was planning a recess… Bad form.  The fact that they have yet to make progress on the legislative items in the benchmark does not bode well for them regarding future US support.

The military metrics you crave are in fact being measured, as demonstrated by the O'Hanlon data, it's just that they are not currently tied to future war funding yet.

The Bush Quagmire After a couple years of the Iraq Adventure, some treasonous disloyal Dems started saying “Iraq is a quagmire”.  Dear Leader Cheney  responded that there were barrels…er, gallons…er,  tons of progress, so much oil…er,  progress as to be unimaginable.  But more disloyal treasonous Americans started to say “Quagmire!”, and ever-clever Bushco came up with the idea of measuring all that Iraq progress by “Benchmarks” (but NOT deadlines!). (I think the famous benchmarks are those proposed by Bushco, with the “oil law” being particularly “crucial”.)

But what exactly is the purpose of the “benchmarks?” To measure progress?  So if the benchmarks were met,  would the troops supposedly start withdrawing, or would they be staying indefinitely in now obviously “improving” Iraq as a lottery prize for Bushco?  And if the benchmarks weren't met, then wouldn't that prove “quagmire” and mean the troops should start withdrawing as well?  Or does failure to meet the benchmarks mean even more “need” for the troops? 

Also, were the benchmarks a something the Iraqis wanted to meet, or didn't want to meet?  Who told them the “meaning” of success or failure?  Mr Articulate Dyslexic?  Hope they took notes. 

So we're “measuring” benchmarks (to be entirely performed by a supposedly sovereign government over which we have no direct “control”) without knowing or having agreed what will happen if the benchmarks are or aren't met!  As the Army boys say:  Situation Normal, All F**ked Up!

I sure am glad the Congressional Repubs held out for this helpful “Benchmark” law instead of the withdrawal dates the Dems proposed.  Cause you can never “measure” enough….and you always find yourself back at square one!  From the Repub carpenter's manual: measure twice, cut…never.

I wander as I wonder Nice bit of oil-based writing, at the top, Parthian. Skillful.

Will I ever encounter a liberal, or any sort of staunch from-the-left Iraq war opponent, who:

a. seems to understand the arguments made against the idea that war was crucially and morally indefensibly about oil; and

b. responds to them?

They must exist. If the Ivory-billed Woodpecker exists, as it may, anything can.  If it never happens it never happens, we'll get through it, but the point here is the effect on comic writing like that, and the way it comes across to a portion of the audience.

Shoot In saying “they must exist” I mean, of course, that liberals like that must exist, a la the woodpecker. Not the “it wasn't about oil” views I'd described.

I fear it could read that way.

We know those arguments and views exist. They're everywhere. Which is the weird thing about it all. Dense, untouched argumentation wherever you look. And liberals everywhere, hacking at hallucinations.

Big Question The big question has improved significantly since you left Eric.  Can you bring Katie Parry next time?

what if we leave? if we leave the islamists will ride roughshod over all of the Middle east….Iran will attack isreal…isreal WILL strike back…meanwhile the Communist PIG Keith Ellison compares Bush to Hitler…….I would say that any Muslim apologist is playing into  Hitlers dead hands………….The Demoncrats..if they gain the White House, will lead this country, and Isreal, to destruction

I have always wondered… Big question for anyone: I alway wondered by our interest is equated to that of Israel or intertwined with it?

As matter of principle, I get that Israel is our friend, but I'm not so sure if I would send my son to defend them. I would do so if our country errouneously goes to war with another country, because that is us.

Can someone help me here?

Unless We Stage a Real War… Upon reflection, it seems to me we are pursuing the conflict in Iraq on the same basis as we did in VietNam, and not on the basis we have used in previous wars.

War is about death, destruction, and crushing the enemy, no holds barred.  It is horrible, terrible, and has an end because one side or the other is pushed to exhaustion.  Collateral damage is everywhere.  “All's fair in … war” is not a saying for nothing. At it's end, people are sick of it, and peace — at last — is welcome.

We use soldiers to do it, armed with the best tools to accomplish this we can gather together. We ask them to win, and swallow hard and accept whatever they do.

This is not the war we are pursuing in Iraq.  And what we are doing cannot be won any more than VietNam. 

But the answer is, in my mind, not to crumple again as we did then.  It is, painfully, to unleash the dogs.  No holds barred.  No politicians allowed to parade “in country.”  And no reporters not willing to live with the troops till then end, either. 

We are at war.  Go to war then, and get it over with.

Easy to talk big sitting in your nice comfortable home in front of your computer.  Why don't you go to war then?  What are you willing to do to “get it over with”? 

Nobody from Iraq attacked us.  We are not fighting armies like in previous wars.  There isn't just “one side”.  We are fighting many different factions  including those we've trained who have helped one faction or another.

Our military has reached the breaking point.  The military brass has been warning this would happen.  Soldiers have been back to Iraq three and four times without enough rest in between.  The Army hasn't met it's recruiting goals the last two months.  It simply is not possible to “unleash the dogs”.  The dogs are exhausted from 5 years of swallowing hard and accepting what they were told. 

It's time to bring them home.

and one more thing tell the families who have lost their loved ones that they weren't fighting in “a real war”.

That's a despicable thing to say.

it is a real war the soldiers want to win..they want to finish the job..anything less would mean the deaths of 3500 trooops would be in vain….only know nothing civilians want us out….politicians muck up everything they touch….and yes…everything in the middle east is intertwined with isreal

for Dora in ww2 soldiers stayed in country until they were killed or wounded enough to go home..there was no time limit…what does one expect when they joined the army?… the army is about killing and destroying things…..a booming job market is one reason the army is having trouble recruiting

Not true From Gen. William Odom:

“U.S. forces have ever been compelled to stay in sustained combat conditions for as long as the Army units have in Iraq. In World War II, soldiers were considered combat-exhausted after about 180 days in the line. They were withdrawn for rest periods. Moreover, for weeks at a time, large sectors of the front were quiet, giving them time for both physical and psychological rehabilitation.”

Is that why you're not in the Army fighting the war you support–a booming job market? 

That's a good question, Nora That question about our interests and Israel's interests.

And it led to some thoughts during the All-Star game  that will have to wait a while to complete. I have to eat. And etc.

I'll just say, when I hear the idea that we somehow have foolishly let ourselves define our interests as “the same” as those of Israel, it gives me the creeps, and here's why.

The basic issue with Israel is its survival. That's the issue that drives its politics and always has. (Why that should be, of course, might pop into a mind.) That's the idea upon which we have come, it seems, or came at some point, to find ourselves in complete agreement with Israel.

We agree: the destruction of Israel would be a monumental, shattering injustice, the sort of injustice that would have been perpetrated by groups or people or nations prone to them, evidently.

In fact in the conservative  mindset as I've come to understand it, it's a perception of who would be rejoicing and triumphant – of who would be receiving the sacrifice – that explains a whole lot of the emotion you find on the issue.

Israel makes mistakes and in some cases made its situation worse in some sense.  The Jewish extremists are a force. Any involvement of the Christian Evangelicals is a goofy not-helpful element.

But the thing I started and which will have to wait has to do with the whole question of Israel's creation, and the way it all has evolved afterward, and what I've gradually decided about all that, including Western culpability and especially including the Arab response from the start.

It's an ocean of riches, that whole topic. It's all about why strongly defending its right to exist is a basic test of integrity.

  (The other way to pass the integrity test on this question is to decide that we should in fact be willing to let that idea go, and acknowledge the hugeness of the mistake, produced by our cherished UN's very first big decision, taken at a time when the world in its good old stupid way was trying gamely to figure out how make things right for these people while also working out how to make sure that sort of thing never happens again.)

The moral and political integrity point To apporach this issue with integrity, its not enough just to decide that Israel is expendable. You would have to be willing to say it.

It's not a passing effort to decide, that is, that Israel is expendable and even deservedly so, while pretending to believe it's not a big issue, or just ignoring the implications for the question as events roll by.

The usual I'd respond, but as usual with paul's self-conscious, gnomic noodlings, he doesn't actually SAY anything, and certainly nothing about “benchmarks”. 

But he sure LOOKS very informed, writerly and contempletive.

Well, dora Item 1: Problem: They don't take folks over 70.  What I am willing to do is back a war fought to win, not to win votes.  Please don't tell me you think our fighting forces are incapable of winning if they were allowed to fight a no-holds-barred war. The world trembles at the thought of their approach, as did Saddam and his army.  It is still the same army.

Item 2: False.  They attacked us almost DAILY for ten years. And do you mean that we can only win certain kinds of wars, not including the kind we are faced with from al Qaida?  I disagree.  Finally, factions who back one another soon enough disolve when it means their very survival.

Item 3: Our military has not reached a “break point”, period.  If it is stressed, it has as much to do with being handcuffed and not allowed to fight as it can fight — just like Viet Nam.  Undo the handcuffs, and they will say “Let's go!”, though the pessimists who handcuffed them now say otherwise.

Your words — Not Mine Dora, a fair and honest discussion does not put words in the other person's mouth.

As my granddaughter, just three, says: “Top it!”

Oh, I can go on too long But I think your little cheap shot there that I don't say anything in the posts to which you're responding is kinda stupid. 

I'm saying you and your strident anti-war brethren don't know the arguments agaisnt the idea that the war was about oil.

Or if you do know them, you don't know them enough to respond to them.

That seems like saying something. Granted, it's not about benchmarks. But I offered it in all serouusnjess after reflecting on why your witty writing on oil pissed me off, even though you probably didn't intend that as an effect on anyone.

handcuffs, good lord…. 1. Our fight against al qaeda isn't a “war”.  This is foolish Bushism and elevates al qaeda far beyond its actual power and threat.  And it's interesting how when the military actually had al qaeda “forces” surrounded in the field at Tora Bora we didn't deploy a single division to round them up.  Kind of weird for a “war”….

2.  Numerous analysts have already declared that for all practical purposes, the ground forces have been “broken” by Bush's continual overdeployment.  As one active duty general said, “The army is toasted”.  Senators know this, even if you don't.  The “surge” is the last gasp, it cannot last beyond the end of the year and has completely destroyed all planned troop rotations for good.  It spells the end of active “offensive” operations whether you know it or not or whether you think the boys are supermen or not.

3. Who do you imagine put these supposed “handcuffs” on the miracle working troops?  Bush? Cheney? von Rumsfeld?  Past Centcom commanders? The lib'rul media? The ineffective minority Dems? The French?

Why don't you indentify some general who espouses your “view” and explain what this general means by “undoing the handcuffs”.  Or is this “strategy” solely that of of Gen J. Handcuffs and the 101st Konservative Keyboard Brigade?

If you want to understand the reality of the situation, try reading an interview with Petraeus.  He's the biggest advocate Bush could find of a more brutal counter-insurgency strategy and he isn't saying anything remotely resembling what you're saying.  Instead, he's saying there is “no military solution to the insurgency in Iraq”.  What do you suppose he means by that,  Gen Handcuffs?

You seem to think that the American military can do things that its own generals think it cannot.  That means you don't have a grip on reality, and are advocating from a position of fantasy and wishful thinking, just like most 101st Keyboarders and “nuke 'em all!” conservatives. 

Fortunately people like you are home sitting in their cozy air-conditioned armchairs reading about the heroic efforts of the Greatest Generation at Omaha Beach, and not sitting anywhere in a position of responsibility.

How depressing… I guess, then, according to this post, having no army to defend us we had better just wring our hands and prepare to die at the hands of the radicals.

Somehow I recall hearing messages like this before.  Washington heard it from royalists.  Lincoln from opponents of the Union.  Americans from nazi sympathizers.  We rejected their messages before.  I hope we will do so again.

You're the one who said… “unless we fight a real war”.  Those were your words. What have they been fighting in then?  What were those who died fighting in? 

my age keeps me out of the army and the fact i have 3 kids..2 in college..and so on and so on…most troops in europe did not live 180 days…..most units had casulty rates over 100%….how much rest do you think our soldiers get in Iraq???…I would say alot!!!!!..most of them come home for 2 weeks R and R…

Is that what Bush has been doing? fighting a war to win votes? 

Are you willing to back a war by paying more in taxes to take care of the soldiers when they get home and to avoid deficit spending to finance it?

And just what does no-holds-barred mean exactly?  Kill them all?  There have been a number of stories of soldiers themselves saying they don't know who they are fighting.  They train Iraqi's that  end up turning on them.  You think that people have “terrorist” tattooed on their forehead so they know they are the enemy?  That's the problem with an insurgency. 

You are delusional.  The Iraqi's did not attack us almost DAILY for ten years.  You obviously don't have any understanding of what is fueling the insurgency.  Our troops are trying to police a civil war. These are not the terrorists that attacked us on 9/11 which was Bush's justification for invading Iraq.

Here is just one comment about the overstretched military. 

From the Christian Science Monitor: “many retired generals and former Pentagon officials have warned: that repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan are wearing out military personnel and equipment to a worrisome point.

“We're running out of Army units for the mission,” says Robert Scales, a retired Army two-star general.

The Army is about to be “broken,” he says.”

You don't know what you talking about,  period.

that's the point they don't get much rest in Iraq.  There is no “front” in Iraq.  It is constant danger with no downtime especially the way the surge is being conducted.  And  R&R; was affected by the surge.  From Military Times:  “Mitchell said he couldn't say exactly how many troops will lose out on R&R; during the influx of new troops, but he doubts the program will completely stop. …”Obviously, positioning combat forces where they are required will take priority” over the R&R; program, Voorhis said.”

You really need to get your facts straight. 

The Extreme Right Authoritarian extremists never get ANY facts right.  They are hostile to facts, frankly.  They don't “believe” in them.

They just have their unshakeable opinions, as “Veritas” (ha-ha) displays above.  Conservatism is a movement based on “faith”, not empirical knowledge.  Hence its complete failure when forced to operate in the real world.

Unfortunately “conservatism”  has grown so large that the government can no longer function and the nation can no longer reform itself or its policies. 

Again, How Depressing Please see my response to Parthian1 above, as apparently you also believe our army is no longer capable of doing what must be done.

I must say, though, I always take comments by retired generals with some grains of salt. Everyone knows that many of the “old guard” have never bought into the new army methods now being employed.  They may be right, but I do trust more those in active duty who are trying to implement the new approach.

For Future Reference Dora and Parthian1, if you want to engage me in dialogue in future, please refrain from the following phrases or any others like them:

“Easy to Talk Big”

“Nice comfortable home in front of your computer”

“foolish Bushism”

“Gen J. Handcuffs”

“you don't have a grip on reality”

“a position of fantasy and wishful thinking”

“101st Keyboarders”

“Nuke 'em all conservatives.”

I consider persons who cannot engage in dialogue without resorting to such gratuitous and insulting phrases not worthy of response from me, as I studiously avoid the drunken bar-room wrangling which this type of dialogue evokes.

Contacted by the Army! What Fun!

Out of the blue, I received a screen from the Army offering to send me info on joining up!

I tried to fill in the blanks to get the info, but got stopped at the date of birth — would not take any year of birth before 1950!

You only listen to Active Duty? Then I take it you agree with Gen. Petraeus when he said “there is no military solution to the insurgency in Iraq”.

drunken bar room wrangling evoked from saying it's “easy to talk big” and “nice comfortable home in front of your computer”?

Such hyperbole.  Besides, I neither drink nor go to bars.