President (To Win Colorado)
See Full Big Line
(D) Kamala Harris
(R) Donald Trump
80%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
See Full Big Line
(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) V. Archuleta
98%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
See Full Big Line
(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Marshall Dawson
95%
5%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
See Full Big Line
(D) Adam Frisch
(R) Jeff Hurd
50%
50%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
See Full Big Line
(R) Lauren Boebert
(D) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
See Full Big Line
(R) Jeff Crank
(D) River Gassen
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
See Full Big Line
(D) Jason Crow*
(R) John Fabbricatore
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
See Full Big Line
(D) B. Pettersen
(R) Sergei Matveyuk
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
See Full Big Line
(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
70%↑
30%
State Senate Majority
See Full Big Line
DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
See Full Big Line
DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
April 24, 2007 03:00 AM UTC
17 Comments
Poor soul.
Poor boy.
You say this is important. If it’s the fight of our lives then I see 4 future fighters there sitting next to dad. Maybe they could replace the 9 that were killed last night.
They won’t take me, I’m too old.
Amid all the appeals to emotion, the red herrings, and false logistics, it’s important to point out the two key fallacies in this diary:
First, the Congressman:
“[T]his legislation contains harmful provisions that mandate benchmarks which tie the hands of the President and Generals on the ground by micromanaging the war.”
That is a true statement, and ain’t no one can prove it wrong. It’s up to Congress to formally declare, upon agreement with the President’s recommendation that such-and-such an action is in this nation’s national security interests, to agree, or disagree, and formally declare “You (Nazis, terrorists, etc.) have just been served.” Which all happened, as I recall, over 4 years ago. (Though the Office of the President actually made its statement to the effect that “regime change” in Iraq was in the national interest back in the Late 90s) After that point, the President says to his Generals, “Fellas, this is your objective. Go forth and do great things.”
Notice, nowhere in there are the Generals given a specific timetable to accomplish their objectives, especially by the Congress. Holding to a timetable, in fact, more often than not defeats an objective, rather than accomplishes or is one. For example, think of a ground patrol going to take out a terror cell leader. Sure, they have a timeline they set for leaving base, for reaching waypoints on the route, and for rolling the guy up, and for getting home. But if you run into vehicle problems prior to departure, or have to go a different route, do you cancel the mission? Hell no – you press on and flex a new timeline, because it’s the *objective* (in this case, rolling up the terrorist) that matters, not when it happens.
Holding any operation to any strict timeline means that any other objective will become a failed objective – whether it means letting the terrorist target go free, or losing the entire damn war. One of Murphy’s Laws of Combat is “No plan will survive contact with the enemy.” The corollary to that is all timelines, aren’t. Everything will always take longer than you’d planned. Even after planning for things to take longer.
By insisting on a timeline, not only is Congress overstepping their bounds in the process of acheiving national objectives through war, but they’re also, in effect, admitting, and indeed ensuring defeat. They’d be better off cutting off funding now – otherwise, every soldier that dies between now and next (whenever the hell they arbitrarily named the date) will be blood on THEIR hands, a soldier they told not only to die for his country, but also to do so in the most impotent, worthless manner possible.
As the Guinness guys say: “BRILLIANT!”
But my analogy comparing a very real microcosm of military operations to the macrocosm that is a war, my second point becomes self-evident:
Quoth the Zappatero:
“the war is already lost”
“our armed forces don’t have enough men to support the mission”
“They won’t take me, I’m too old”
One of these things is not like the other.
Welcome back!
And Harry Reid’s annoyed the hell out of me. I was about ready to actually spew out a screed of a diary on the whole thing. I’m afraid Zappatero stepped in front of the bullet he did’t even know was coming. I kind of feel bad.
Good trip thus far. Busy, but good.
you call us traitors but don’t solve the key problem – personnel.
You say this: One of Murphy’s Laws of Combat is “No plan will survive contact with the enemy.” — which is true.
I’ve also heard this: “Hope for the best, plan for the worst.” — which Bush did none of.
As to timelines, when my boss tells me to do something, he doesn’t say get to it when you feel like it. By your, and the President’s, logic we can never leave Iraq.
I mean, I’ll admit I’m a chicken – But “coward” might be a bridge too far. Since you don’t know me, I’ll introduce myself: “Hi, I’m Yokel. To put it simply, I’m *not* too old.”
Now, I’ll admit that the biggest mistake was not Iraq, not tax cuts, but rather not increasing the authorized strength of the military on 9/12/01. The second biggest mistake has been the State Department. Period. They’ve plain blown it. The military has waged the most effective and efficient war in the history of war, but the State Department hasn’t even shown up for their end of the deal. Awesomeness.
You jumped to a ridiculous conclusion in your last statement – The only gap I can bridge it with is that you presume that achieving the military objective in Iraq is impossible, under any circumstances. You obviously don’t have any perspective on that – Hell, even Ramadi’s becoming actually *safe.* Let alone the offensives into Sadr City, and Iraqi Army strikes into Diwaniyah, the heart of Sadr’s influence working. Hell, you probably couldn’t even point those places out on the map, let alone determine what it means for the larger picture of Iraq.
about the State department and how they dropped the ball. (Being serious here, not snarky or disrespectful.) If you mean that they didn’t get more countries lined up in the “coalition of the willing” or getting the UN involved, I’d say that’s more to do with Bush himself – if he wanted it he would have made State get it and to date I haven’t heard any regret from Bush that this wasn’t accomplished.
Other than that I can’t think of what you mean. You surely aren’t suggesting that State is supposed to get all the warring factions together…
It’s the DoD’s job to kill people and break things, and to roll up the bad guys who like to do the same. At that, they’ve been doing a rather good job.
The big, lasting problem has been the lack of economic growth. If you don’t have a job, you tend to take what you can, and that includes smuggling arms and building bombs. You can’t blame that on the lack of security – outside of Baghdad and Ramadi, security hasn’t been a huge issue for quite some time. Encouraging economic development by getting international organizations whose job that specifically is, and advising the Iraqi government on doing the same, that, I’d submit, is the province of State. And on that mark, they’ve been asleep at the wheel. Certainly, it’s not only the US State Department’s job – indeed, the Kurds know this and they’ve actually been pushing *tourism* campaigns to come visit their scenic mountain lands. But they haven’t been doing much, if anything, to help.
That has been the failure of the war – the economic growth aspect, not the military defense aspect.
Economic development in Iraq has not been strong. One reason is what you’re talking about, failed policies. However, many of these policies relied on the oil revenues from Iraqi oil. As we know this revenue is less than expected for a variety of reasons.
The State Dept. actually doesn’t have too much influence in the economic development of Iraq. The US has implemented a market based system that many Iraqis (and other developing nations) are still learning. Capitalism isn’t second nature for most of the world – although we’re trying our darndest…
Furthermore, the US shunned other nations’ investment money during the beginning of the war. We figured, we’re going at it alone, we reap the benefits. Another mistaken economic development policy.
That’s certainly not something you see or hear in the media much, if at all. I’ll make a point in answer.
Encouraging economic development by getting international organizations whose job that specifically is, and advising the Iraqi government on doing the same, that, I’d submit, is the province of State.
Given the continued disruption by suicide bombers, such as last week’s blast in the Green Zone, I’d say State has their work cut out for them. International orgs may be concerned for the safety of their personnel, rightfully so in light of continued attacks. I don’t know how secure industry is now – I recall lots of attacks on pipelines and refineries in the past, are those still happening? – but asking anyone to go into places that aren’t secure (or seem not to be) is a tall order.
I’d also say that certain cavalier decisions by the president have made State’s job harder. We went into Iraq without international supports, save from the UK and a handful of allies, many of whom have pulled out in the interim.
But was it State who was enforcing loyalty and political correctness (in the conservative sense) among contractors and volunteers who came to help rebuild Iraq? Or was that a White House function? If State, then your criticism in on the mark there.
All that said, I’ll admit I’m far from an expert on the State Department and all its functions. Outside of G8 meetings the press doesn’t cover much about economic diplomacy.
Though not as forcefully as I should have.
Security, though an issue in some places, is a non-issue in many, many others. Just because security broke down in New Orleans back in 2005 after Katrina didn’t mean investment in St Louis or San Jose dried up. Similarly, there are a *lot* of places in Iraq that are no less secure than most of the rest of the world. It surely ain’t the DoD’s job to drum up investment, and since State’s the only other department that deals directly with foreign policy, I think it would fall on them, don’t you?
And your presumptions about the lack of international support aside, there are a LOT of countries involved in supporting the war, to this very day. Some include neighbors who should be encouraged to continue to strengthen bonds with Iraq (not Iran – rather, Jordan), and some include sheikdoms that are rather experienced at foreign investment to make up for drying up oil reserves (Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, UAE). And yet, here we are, very little investment, save the investment the Kurds are putting in their own region. You’d think if that HAD been a priority, things might have been a little different. Just think of all the cities that have turned blighted downtowns into thriving hipster hotspots with just a baseball stadium or a riverwalk or some such (or both, in the case of Oklahoma City). To me, that’s been the biggest failure in Iraq. The military operations, both conventional (first couple months) and counter-insurgency, by all historical comparison, have been rather the opposite of failures.
So I’ll refine my point – do you think State is operating with one hand tied behind its back, so to speak, given what’s going on? I know that much of the country is secure, but if I were investing I’d still worry about the places that aren’t, especially since one of the places is the capitol. And if I were an investor, I’d be damned sure I had confidence in the Iraqi government, and that’s kind of hard to have when major groups like Sadr’s pulls out over economic issues like the oil bill that they’re trying to settle right now.
As far as encouraging bonds between Iraq and her neighbors – well, first I should admit to limited understanding of arab culture. But I have read analysts who say that there is still a definite tribalism between the nations and that they don’t naturally tend to get along with one another. Some have cited this as the reason Israel was able to get established – while they all professed Israel’s destruction, they just couldn’t band together and get the job done. So getting them to see the advantage of a stable Iraq may be a tougher sell than it would be if they were selling a stable Balkan peninsula to western Europe.
Anyway, you raised an interesting point. It could be that you’re 100% correct and that I’m all wet. Someone in the media ought to do a report on it.
That’s funny. 🙂
Anyway, while there is a certain tribalism, the countries I named (with the possible exception of Jordan, though they’ve been probably the strongest local ally in dealing directly with Iraq) have moved well beyond tribalism and into capitalism – especially places like Dubai and Bahrain. And though Arab culture is indeed tribal, religious, and familial, like nearly every other non-Western culture, they seem to understand the value of commerce even more than we do. (Think “Happy New Year” vs. “Prosperous New Year”)
Now, granted, an imperfect political solution makes investment more difficult – but with the power and will of the United States behind insuring its stability, that can be overcome. Though with Congress being a bunch of partisan jackasses, it’s probably too late for that.
“This important legislation sets a new direction for Iraq. It acknowledges that America went to war without mobilizing the nation, that our strategy in Iraq has been tragically flawed since the invasion in March 2003, that our Army and Marine Corps are at the breaking point with little to show for it, and that our military alone will never establish representative government in Iraq. The administration got it terribly wrong and I applaud our Congress for stepping up to their constitutional responsibilities.”
-Maj. Gen. John Batiste, USA, Ret.
“This bill gives General Petraeus great leverage for moving the Iraqi government down the more disciplined path laid out by the Iraq Study Group. The real audience for the timeline language is Prime Minister al-Maliki and the elected government of Iraq. The argument that this bill aides the enemy is simply not mature – nobody on the earth underestimates the United States’ capacity for unpredictability. It may further create some sense of urgency in the rest of our government, beginning with the State Department.”
-Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, USA, Ret.
“The bill gives the president a chance to pull back from a disastrous course, re-orient US strategy to achieve regional stability, and win help from many other countries – the only way peace will eventually be achieved.”
-Lt. Gen. Wm. E. Odom, USA, Retired
“Supporting the Iraq Supplemental Bill not only reflects the thinking of the Iraq Study Group but puts teeth to the phrase “Supporting the Troops”. By establishing timelines it returns the responsibility of self preservation and regional sovereignty to the people of Iraq and their government.”
-Maj. Gen. Mel Montano, USANG, Ret
“We must commence a coordinated phased withdrawal of U.S. combat troops and condition our continuing support of the Iraqi government on its fulfilling the political commitments it has made to facilitate reconciliation of the contending secular factions. Otherwise, we will continue to be entwined in a hopeless quagmire, with continuing American casualties, which will render our ground forces ineffective.”
– Lt. Gen. Robert Gard, USA Ret.
First, glad to see ya back.
To implement a time for withdrawal doesn’t signal defeat, it signals we’ve won. We went in to find WMD, there were none, so that’s done. We wanted regime change. That’s done.
So, mission accomplished, time to come home. A timeline for withdrawal can be flexible too (Ried and Bush need to realize this).
Both sides are being bullheaded about this. Dems want to score political points before the this November by insisting on a short timeline. Bush is trying to hold on to his failed war plan without an exit strategy.