Bloodless Coup

Well, I've seen Santa Claus myself. He was onstage, with the Flaming Lips, right next to the Easter Bunny.

Ah, the Flaming Lips reference. If Wayne gets any more grey in his hair, he could be Santa Claus.

The most complete summary of the whole swift boat mess is in sunday's WP, written by Michael Dobbs. The best way for Kerry to confirm his own story would be to release his full military record, but he's chosen not to do that. Like you, I would agree we should be focused on current issues...except that Kerry uses his service record as justification for being a better CinC. If he would release his own plan for Iraq, we could talk about that, but he won't do that. Recall while lamenting Republican inconsistency on service in the military that nobody was talking about Kerry's record until he stood up at his convention, saluted, and talked about how he was reporting for duty. This is an issue because Kerry chose to make it one.

Morris,

I'll agree that Sundays WaPo had a longer piece, though I'm not sure it was that much more informative. To sum up: Both Sides Not Telling Complete Truth. I didn't think we needed a multi-page WaPo story to tell us that.

That being said, I'm not sure Kerry is arguing that because he served (30 some odd years ago) he is thus a better CinC. I think his argument is more along the lines of: because I served, I understand the military and it's limitations and use. He would be a good CinC (again, putting words in his mouth) because of his service, Senate career, views, and policies (in other words, all of it). As for Iraq, he has put a plan up (here). While the plan does not contain precise step-by-step instructions, it is at least specific enough that it is debatable. Finally, this may be an issue that Kerry raised (though who raised it first, and is Kerry just responding to other criticisms, is still debatable), but that doesn't mean we have to give it any attention.

Morris - As you well understand (I presume) matters on the ground in late January (when a President Kerry would take office) are very likely to look quite a bit different than they do today. How much of a detailed plan re: Iraq would you expect Kerry to produce? We already know his broad priorities and basic preferred instrumental approaches. Releasing prospective plans that would have to be changed every month for the next 5 months as events change seems to me like a waste of time.

Just to make sure the gang's all here...the discussion of Kerry's record was going on before the convention. Sure, there's been a flurry happening, but this is hardly the first time it's come up.

Baltar,
We certainly can debate the points within this plan, but again it really doesn't address specifics of how he's going to get cooperation from NATO; does this mean we pay them for helping us? Does this mean that as a matter of program we only intervene when the world commnunity supports us? I think we've been in the mode for a long time (I'm sure Armand would love to throw a shot at Reagan on this point) of paying countries (calling it economic aid) to go along with us, and with a balooning deficit (which I'm sure you'll blame on Bush, though I think H'land security (again, fill in another shot on civil rights abuses) is a big component), is this such a good idea?

On his second point, how is he going to convince other countries to help rebuild Iraq when so many of them are pulling out in response to hostage taking tactics? Personally, I wonder if bringing in more military engineers would be a better solution to what I admit is a crisis situation.

I would certainly agree that we should make training Iraqi security forces a priority, though again there are not any specifics as to how he's going to accomplish this. Does this mean more troops and he thinks actually saying this would be politically unpopular, since this would turn the whole Iraq as Vietnam debate against him? Does this mean that he would bring more U.S. trainers from other parts of the world and he doesn't want to say this since he wouldn't be able to criticize Bush for pulling troops from abroad? Again, Kerry talks about international cooperation without more than his word that he'll be able to accomplish this.

In his last point, he talks about convening Iraq's neighbors so they might give a pledge of respect for Iraq's borders and not to interfere in internal matters. Since it appears that Iran is supporting Al Sadr to destabilize Iraq...is this a joke? Is this pledge supposed to be as binding as Iran's pledge not to develop nuclear weapons?

As far as the whole soldier boy thing goes, I still don't really see how the whole issue of Kerry's being in Vietnam is a plus for him at all since he'd applied for a deferment and it was denied, and only then did he sign up for a duty that was not a combat duty when he signed up for it. Then he got an early out after a few months after receiving a purple heart for an unintentional, self-inflicted injury. What I mean is, I'm not sure this helps him understand the military or its limitations since he took his first out, it seems he came home after realizing he simply doesn't have a soldier's personality...not something I'd fault him for, but it seems to go in the opposite direction of understanding the military. I'm not sure his service in the Senate helps his understanding any more since he lied about Xmas in Cambodia to make a point about the Contras that never in fact came to fruition. In fact, Central America seems to have found a level of stability that we can only hope for Iraq in twenty years.

Armand, I'm not suggesting we know which regiments are going to be stationed where, but can't we know how he's going to get international cooperation (besides asking nicely and not being a Texan)? Is he going to send more U.S. troops into Iraq or bring them home? Certainly, changes in the next few months should change a policy approach, but given the situation there now, what would he do as President? These questions are not really so specific.

Binky, you're absolutely right. I had heard this once or twice before the convention, and now a few hundred times since then.

The Grinch

is kerry's plan really any less specific than shock and awe was at the outset? at most, s & a consisted of a loose array of putative priorities and a vague sense of how to accomplish them, addled at the outset by mediocre intelligence as to what level of resistance to expect and further hampered by utterly absurd expectations as to how a u.s. invasion force would be received by the people on the street . . . not to mention numerous, largely forgotten logistical embarrassments that almost certainly cost american lives.

even if s & a was more precise in its contours at the time, i think kerry is speaking at _least_ as clearly about what he would do as the bush admin is speaking about what it has done, is doing, and intends to do. and the crucial difference is that kerry hasn't demonstrated, as have bush & co., that he will manifest in office absolutely no ability to adapt to changing circumstances, or that he will play his untuned ideological violin even as rome burns.

the focus on kerry's war record is unfortunate. forget that bush couldn't even show up for his cushy anywhere-but-'Nam commitments; he didn't even have a serious _job_ until he was governor of texas. may the presidency never again go to anyone so woefully unqualified, now that we've seen the costs.

Joshua,
It occurs to me that if Kerry were seeking a promotion within the military, those who would promote him would have complete access to his military record. But when he's running for the highest military post in the country, he's choosing not to let the people who would promote him see it; that bothers me, even if you don't believe the story by his former supervisor that it was he who overestimated the extent of Kerry's injuries to get him medals that would get him out of Vietnam where they were concerned the self-named "Boston Strangler" would commit more war crimes consistent with the allegations he later leveled at himself and other veterans. As I've said above, it seems Kerry did quite a bit to avoid any combat in Vietnam, so I'm not sure Bush is really any worse in comparison. You talk about Bush not having a job in the mean time, would you rather he have served as spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War, attending a meeting where the assassination of U.S. senators was discussed according to FBI files? Is this supposed to be better preparation? We could talk about his Senate as such preparation, but as Wolf Blitzer said, it's just too bad the Democratic candidates are sitting U.S. Senators because their voting and attendance records can be used against them.

So you expect Bush to have been able to specifically plan something as chaotic as war and regime change but Kerry gets a pass on being as specific about rebuilding Iraq, on how he would proceed if he took over today? To be quite honest about Iraqi expectations, I think the Kurds feel a lot safer today than they did two years ago, but maybe oppressed and exterminated minorities aren't a good enough pay off for angering most of the Sunnis and the militant Shiites. But then, they already hated us, didn't they? You talk about lack of preparation, failure to adapt to changing circumstances, but wasn't it Kerry who opposed such adaptation by voting against the body armor for troops in Iraq? He has the worst habit of abandoning troops in the field, just like when the 3 boat hit that mine.

I wonder if the democrats couldn't find a better spokesman for Abu Gharib because after overestimating war crimes in Vietnam for his own political opportunity, people may assume he's doing the same thing in Iraq. I like your colorful metaphors, but I'm confused as whether Rome is supposed to be Baghdad or Washington? Perhaps you could choose a more appropriate metaphor and a more appropriate president. Let's be honest, if Gen. Clark had gotten the nomination, Bush wouldn't have a chance at four more years.

Joshua states: "the focus on kerry's war record is unfortunate."

Unfortunate? Kerry broadcast for all the world to see his "report for duty." He can't have it both ways... if he want's us to evalutate him based on his service in Vietnam, then let us TRULY evaluate that service.

You also state: "forget that bush couldn't even show up for his cushy anywhere-but-'Nam commitments; he didn't even have a serious _job_ until he was governor of texas. may the presidency never again go to anyone so woefully unqualified, now that we've seen the costs."

I would encourage you to read a editorial by Col. William Campenni in The Washington Times, August 25, 2004. He, among so many others, really resents equating service in the Air National Guard with being a "traitor" in the words of Al Gore. Please -- you have to respect the number of national guard members who served (and died) then, and are serving (and dying) now.

Oh, and by the way... where have YOU served?

The point is not to compare national guard members who have served and died to John Kerry. The point is compare two candidates for the same job. And like it or not, even though both did 'quite a bit' to avoid going, one went and one didn't. How many wanted to go? How many tried not to go? I would guess that based on the historical record the number who really, truly desired to go was small. But, some took the bull by the horns and volunteered. Others crossed their fingers. Still others, hoped not to but when their number came up, went anyway. Some pulled strings more effectively and never went.

Someone posted a comment (armand? baltar?) at one point about how the national guard of today is not the same as the national guard of yore. The guard of today is much more likely to be at risk in a war zone than in the past.

I suspect our military expert Baltar to straighten me out now, of course.

Binky, the point is that one could legally not go and the other couldn't. I don't want to diminish what Kerry or any other veteran went through, it must have been awful. But we have to rate our presidents based on what they chose to do. It's easy for you to make insinuations about better string pulling, but since Kerry had an elitist background similar to Bush, it seems like just an insinuation. Even if the Guard was unlikely to see combat duty, so were the swift boats at the time Kerry (reluctantly) joined up. He chose to at least accept a purple heart without earning it, watering down an honor reserved for heroic acts. It is a noble thing to serve one's country, but I can't really give Kerry any credit for spending a few months in Vietnam when he came home and tore into so many others who'd served their country in equal or greater measures. It seems obvious that serving in Vietnam did not seem a noble thing to Kerry himself, because if it was he wouldn't have said such nasty things about others still serving his country when he said them.

No, "binky", the point was to compare apples to apples. Service is service -- Yes, JFK (this one, not the other one) did "volunteer" to serve in Vietnam...

But let's give GWB a fair shake here. He chose to become a pilot in the TANG, and give a little credit where credit is due: he didn't have to sign up for 2.5 years of active duty, he did so to become a pilot -- of an aircraft with a crappy safety record, by the way -- it wasn't a cush type of training, and it wasn't the minimum.

My real beef with JFK is this: He spent LITTLE time in country, wilfully accepted purple hearts for at least one (that the Kerry campaign has now acknowledged) and most likely two self-inflicted boo-boos, and used those (knowingly false) awards to get a cush job back in DC, abandoning his crewmates (what happened to no man left behind??).

THEN, if that wasn't sleazy enough, he smeared every soldier serving in Vietnam with the brush that they were all war criminals ROUTINELY committing atrocities in Vietnam. Listen to his own words on the Dick Cavett show available on the CSPAN website.

SO many people are saying: this doesn't mean anything! It was thirty years ago! My response: The men and women now serving would be incredibly demoralized serving under a CinC who socialized with Hanoi Jane and smeared service members WHILE still an officer in the US Navy.

He brought his service record and his service to our country in general into the spotlight -- now he has to handle the fact that the light shows how truly ugly he was 30 years ago...

Well, no actually that's not the case. On a job interview, you compare the candidates regardless of the type of fruit. The point of interviewing candidates and comparing their records is different than a general comparison of the war records of all veterans, be they from the guard, the navy, or the special forces. Clearly any one of us could come up with numerous example of veterans who were more heroic than either Bush or Kerry. However, those other veterans are not currently under consideration for the position we have been discussing. If I'm hiring for my store, I'm not really going to spend the time discussing Donald Trump's qualifications. It might be interesting, but it's a diversion and a waste of time. For those who are truly considering war record as an indicator of how well either man will perform in office, it only makes sense to evaluate the actual candidates.

That being said, I think that the service record is less indicative of qualification than the ability to conceive of and execute - with the help of a skilled team of advisors that makes use of all the highly skilled professionals the government employs - a foreign policy that might actually achieve rather than thwart our national security goals.

and p.s. to Morris. No, I wasn't insinuating. What I meant was, I bet Kerry and countless others would have taken the string pulling if they could have gotten it. For the poor, the black, the average, it wasn't an option so they didn't get the chance. But I bet a lot of them would have liked to be able to get the deferrments that Ashcroft or Cheney or insert_liberal_elite_name_here could get. For some of the elite, it didn't work out either. What I was trying to get at was that I think that there are many humans (among them a sizable subset who were eligible to serve in Viet Nam) whose instinct for self-preservation would outweigh almost any other concern. Some of them had no choice but to ignore that instinct because their number came up. Others ran away. Others pulled what strings they could. Others were noble and volunteered.

And in regard to saying nasty things, well, would you feel better if he had hired an image consultant rather than express anger and frustration? Can we look now and say in hindsight and say that Kerry's words caused other veterans pain? Of course. But I don't think that's the best road to go down, because there are plenty of other administrations who have caused veterans pain (let's not even get started on the pathetic support for those who are coming back wounded or in need of counseling, much less the shameful state of the VA hospitals).

I guess what it boils down to for me is that as a voter, I make decisions on policy and issues, not on how I "feel" about someone's record of service or on the twisted spin and post-de-re-construction of someone's past (especially someone's 20s - heaven forbid we should be held accountable for all the nonsense we said in our 20s). Especially with the current climate of parrot-news, I doubt we'll ever get close to the truth.

this whole purple heart thing is starting to wear thin, especially because the griping about the nature of the wound for which it was awarded has come most recently from bob dole, who, by his own admission, was awarded a purple heart for a similar "self-inflicted" wound.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003309 [my apologies that i don't know how to embed this link]

and speaking of "scratches," from how many "scratches" are any of us now carrying shrapnel?

as for the dick cavett show, i watched it a couple of weeks ago. while the familiar allegation recurred that kerry demeaned all vietnam war veterans by suggesting that war crimes were committed by most or all troops on the ground, what did _not_ occur, not once, was john o'neill either a) averring that search and destroy missions, inter alia, were _not_ frequently carried out by troops on the ground or b) that search and destroy missions, inter alia, were _not_ a violation of the geneva convention. which is to say, o'neill did not once _directly_ respond to kerry's allegations, preferring to obliquely smear kerry as dishonorable. nor did he address kerry's insistence on focusing his allegations on the command structure and the trickle-down military imperatives, instead behaving as though kerry's principal gripe was with the soldiers in the jungle, which it quite obviously was not.

and what is there to say about john o'neill . . . he's in cambodia, he's not in cambodia, he's made a cottage industry of bashing one man for thirty years . . . his credibility is as thin as his pseudo-arguments were on cavett ("pseudo-" because they were shamelessly evasive; they foreshadowed the non-answer answer now a staple of tv politics, as well as describing the current administration's entire media strategy).

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=694&u=/ap/20040825/ap_on_el_pr/kerry_critic_swift_boats_1&printer=1 [again, apologies]

finally, i have nothing but the utmost admiration for those valiant men and women who have served honorably in combat or during wartime, here or abroad, active forces or reserves, volunteer or conscript. since bush and his supporters seem utterly unwilling to explain his apparent failure to report for duty, however, i reserve judgment about his putative service until further notice.

and if my lack of military service precludes me from criticizing the conduct of the military that serves in my name and that of 300 million others, then i assume it also precludes donald rumsfeld from running the show?

If that's the case, Joshua, then the U.S. is going to have to make sure to schedule wars with some regularity so we have qualified presidents, cabinet secretaries, and critics.

And my final comment on the subject of deconstructing all of this, in parts. 1) We can never know in someone's heart-of-hearts whether he wanted to go to war, so it makes little sense (to me) to debate motives for volunteering that we can never know. It could be duty, it could be resignation, it could be a death wish...who knows? 2) Veterans, even those some have criticized as having had "cushy" posts in a foreign war, have witnessed, experienced or participated in (directly and indirectly) scarring events. That the results of those physical and emotional scars impact some people in public office differently (for example JFK's drug problems vs. Kerry's disillusionment) seems to me part of these candidates' qualities as part of the body of flawed human beings, just like the rest of us. 3) All of this discussion of war record is a diversion. What I want is more honest, factual, detailed analysis of the policies, and plans. But, as I've said earlier, I know I am in the minority on this. "Shrapnel" sounds sexier on the six o-clock news than "policy implementation."

(Preamble: Why do we have 17 comments for something I said I didn't want to talk about? Will you also not do what I say on other things? OK, DON'T give me $1,000,000.)

Marris, service is not service. Sure, everybody who serves can claim they were all part of the military, but some service is more distinguished, useful, honorable and/or heroic than others (notice the "or" - service can be all, some or none of those things). GWB's service was not on par with Kerry's - the official military records back this up (and don't get started calling those into question - that's a road we don't want to go down). If service means anything (and I think that's debateable), Kerry's was at least that of a leader - in charge of a boat, the equipment and maintenance of it, and the men on it. A pilot in the National Guard is rarely required to exercise the kind of leadership that Kerry must have had to do frequently. To my mind, that is the relevant skills that can be learned by military service.

As for Kerry's fleeing the scene to a "cushy" job back in DC and abandoning his men, I think you're on crack. There is no credible evidence that the wounds were self-inflicted (that would be cowardice, and they still shoot people for that in the military), though they may have been minor. But so what? He was in or close to combat, and was wounded three times. He met the military's definition for the medal, and got it. If you have a beef with that, take it up with the Pentagon. As to his fleeing to DC, why should he stay? People were always rotating in and out of Vietnam - they put their time in and went home. I know of very, very few cases where people volunteered to stay longer. What was he supposed to do, stay there until all his crewmen had rotated out (and what about the new ones coming in to replace them, should he stay until they go to? When does he get to go home?)?

As for his post-Vietnam activism, I'm going to ignore the issue of whether it was legitimate or not (certainly free speech allowed him to say what he thought), and concentrate more on this absurd issue of the demoralization of the troops. There is no credible evidence that public protest actually demoralizes the troops. Moreover, if such a thing were true (and I doubt it), it would be a good thing. This is a democracy, and the will of the people is supposed to be reflected in the policies of the government. If enough people don't like what the government is doing, they protest and get the government to change. If the military is supposed to be an apolitical branch of the government implementing policy (fighting to achieve a political goal) and if domestic protests make the military nervous about what they are doing, then the system works. The military is not supposed to be blind or supported universally. If they are sent to do a wrong thing, then public pressure is one avenue of democracy that restrains them. Let them feel unsupported - the system works. Moreover, the Army designed itself deliberately to be this way after Vietnam. Not much of the Guard was called up for Vietnam - the army was staffed by volunteers first, then the draft. The Army Chief of Staff, after the war, declared that the Army needed to be more in touch with the country, and changed the Guard system. Now quite a few active army divisions have two brigades of active troops and one of Guard - the Guard to be mobilized to join the active troops in time of war. That way, the Army can't go off and fight without a component of "civilians" with them, and the country can't fight a war if the population doesn't want to - democracy again.

Kerry, as a citizen, saw the country moving in the wrong direction in the early 70s. He choose to speak out against it, and to become a part of politics to try and fix it. What the hell is wrong with that? That's how the system is supposed to work. To my knowledge, he never indicted the entire military, except to argue that we shouldn't be fighting there at all (a policy debate). He saw something he disagreed with, and he tried to fix it within the system. If you think what he did back then was wrong, then tell me what else he should have done? Send letters to his Congressman?

This is an insane debate. The fact that people are calling into question Kerry's medals is just wrong. Maybe, just maybe, he didn't deserve one, or maybe even two. He got five (three purple hearts, a bronze star, and a silver star). You have to at least acknowledge that he did something back then.

Moreover, its completely fucking irrelevant. Let's talk about Iraq. Iran's nukes. Pakistan's nukes. Afghanistan. The economy. Taxes. Social Security. Islamic Fundamentalism. New Source Review. No-Child-Left-Behind. North Korea's nukes. The decaying democracy in Russia.

Let's not talk about this.

My bad ... I thought this was a forum for free discussion. I must have been confused, baltar. Go ahead and get back to discussing issues you like with people who agree with you.

One last comment, though. You're insane -- and obviously INCREDIBLY niave -- to think that demoralizing the troops fighting a war is a good thing. Whose side are you on?

Joshua,
What John O'Neil did in not directly contesting Kerry is key here: he didn't speak to that of which he had no personal knowledge, as Kerry did in detailing the atrocities others had listed, of which some turned out fabricated. By the way, shouldn't Al Gore be advising Kerry to sue for back royalties of the party game Jenga, since in using the alternate pronunciation of Genghis Khan he essensially invented it. It surely makes as much sense as bringing a complaint against the Bush campaign for being involved in a 527 group when Harold Ickeys is as heavily involved with a couple and when Theresa Heinz Kerry has actually spoken at Moveon.org functions. If Bob Dole got a purple heart dishonestly, he should give it up just as Kerry...this isn't a partisan issue.

Binky, it is certainly important for any citizen to be able to vent their frustrations with government in a democracy; so what then do you think of the democratic party's attempts to silence and dismiss 64 swift boat vets? It is Kerry's overgeneralizations and embellishments to make his case, testifying to what he did not himself witness that bothers me when it serves his own politics, and that did not stop 30 years ago. I agree that mistakes of youth can be forgiven, but he should still apologize and explain that that's what this was. Until he makes clear he no longer believes these things when they are such a running part of the presidential debate, Vietnam Vets still feel hurt by his words that he has chosen not to take back. Also, we do not regularly know the motives in the heart of hearts of people who act against society's interest by commiting crimes, but when their continued unwatched presence poses a threat to society's future as indicated by past behavior, we do this all the time. Or maybe you think the criminal justice system is a waste of time and should be abolished? We should certainly take more care with someone who will be the most powerful person in the free world (if I miss my attempt to steal Baltar's Xmas present while in Whoville). Your idea when extended to its logical conclusion would mean that we should never give military honors because for all we know any soldier who kills a lot of enemies may be a psychopath instead of a hero. Armand seems to think a flawed human being isn't good enough to be president, so it's interesting when you choose to forgive the ones with whose party you identify. And I certainly tried to start a discussion of Kerry's Iraq policy but only Joshua seemed interested in responding to what I had to say.

Baltar, You sound like Kerry when talking about a road we don't want to go down, Kerry's words were "Bring it on". So when is he going to bring on his full military record? Are we supposed to just dismiss his supervisor's account, and those of 64 other swift boat vets? Even Audie Murphy didn't win so many medals in such a short time, but maybe he wasn't writing his own after action reports. If you read the Wa Po story from Sunday, it talks about how Kerry and other vets tried to blow up a few tons of rice and Kerry didn't run fast enough, that's how he got the shrapnel in his ass. I think the close to combat and the injury are supposed to be connected in time directly. Haven't you seen Kerry's testifying, his news clip? He certainly suggested that all Americans in Vietnam were not just servants of an errant policy, they were all war criminals. How would you have felt if you heard that clip while serving in a Vietnam POW camp? A little demoralized, maybe. I believe that Kerry did do something in Vietnam, I just don't know why he's so scared of the American people finding out what that was. Let him release his military records and we can end this debate.

If it wasn't free discussion 1) there would be no open comments or 2) comments that the editors disgreed with would be deleted.

It is also interesting to note that the editors/writers of bloodlesscoup occupy different places on the political spectrum and belong to different political parties, which occasionally leads to name calling and arguing amongst themselves (in a friendly way, of course).

Marris,

I'm not denying you any right to continue to talk about this. I'm arguing that there are many, many things that we could argue about that would be more relevant to electing a good president than this issue. It's a plea to talk about those things, not the swift boat irrelevancy.

One of those topics, though not one directly related to Presidential politics in 2004 but certainly more worth debating, is this issue of Kerry's post-Vietnam protests and the demoralization of the military. I never said demoralizing the troops is a good thing. I'll try to be clearer:

1. I have seen no evidence that domestic political arguments about the appropriatness of force have a negative effect on the moral of the troops serving. If you have evidence of this, show me. Don't just assert it. I think you are selling the military short. They volunteered because they believe in the ideals of this country. If they see people exercising some of those ideals (free speech), I don't think they will feel demoralized.

2. Even if such evidence exists (again, I don't believe it does), that is not sufficient reason to cease political debate within a democracy. The democracy takes precedence over the troops (if it is the other way around, its not a democracy anymore). In a democracy, if the polity feels a need to debate a foreign policy decision then they have that right to, no matter what that does to the troops. This is a form of majority rule: if only a few people protest (think Gulf War I), it makes little press and there is little public debate. If many people protest (think Vietnam), it makes lots of press and causes political change in the direction towards what the median public wants.

2a. (Shorter version of #2) My right to free speech trumps any demoralization. That's foundational to the democracy.

I think that is clearer. I don't wish to only argue with people who agree with me, but I do wish to argue about issues and topics that are interesting. Kerry's swift boat is irrelevant and uninteresting. That was the point of my post.

Wel, Morris, since I am not a lawyer my understanding of the legal aspects of libel (slander?) is fuzzy, but isn't retraction/correction part of that process? So that if Kerry thinks/proves he has been slandered/libeled, legally, legitimately, he can call for the cessation of distribution of the erroneous material? Again, I am not up enough on technical details, nor on whether or not the book in question has been proven to be slander/libel. I do know that it is much easier to get away with here than in England, for example, where their libel laws are much friendlier to the alleged victim.

And you are incorrectly extending "my logic" to a different conclusion, but I'm not sure why. You suggest that I think that not seeing into the heart of hearts means we shouldn't award medals because we might be awarding them to a psychopath. This is exactly the opposite of my argument. My point is that since we can never know the motivation, we can only look at observable behavior. Just as you say "as indicated by past behavior." So, I am interested in what candidates did not on some imputed motivation.

And you are also deliberately ignoring my opinion on flawed humans, all of whom I forgive for fearing death. Recall: "deferrments that Ashcroft or Cheney or insert_liberal_elite_name_here" Claiming that I forgive only Kerry is not only erroneous, but lazy. That Armand and I disagree in the line of soft-heartedness is nothing new. I also take in stray dogs and he does not.

What I cannot forgive, is bad foreign policy that puts the lives of U.S. soldiers at risk without accomplishing the mission. I find it especially interesting that we have all this debate about Viet Nam, because one of the hopes that I had for the Bush administration (yes, I had hopes for them) was that by having Colin Powell on board our foreign policy might actually make use of the Powell Docrine.

Morris,

I think we need to clarify something:

Morris wrote: it is certainly important for any citizen to be able to vent their frustrations with government in a democracy; so what then do you think of the democratic party's attempts to silence and dismiss 64 swift boat vets?

Nobody, left or right, is trying to deprive any veterans of any free speech. Certainly, as a political strategy, they are attempting to dismiss them - that doesn't violate anybody's free speech. However, speech is only free until it becomes libelous or slanderous (Any lawyers out there? Which one do I mean?). This is that old "Shout fire in a crowded theater" debate again. If there is no fire, and I know it, and I shout it, then I am responsible for the damages. If the swift boat vets know that what they are saying is not true, then Kerry has the right to ask for the book to be withdrawn. As I understand it, that is what he has done. No one is taking away anyone's free speech.

Morris wrote: Are we supposed to just dismiss his supervisor's account, and those of 64 other swift boat vets? Even Audie Murphy didn't win so many medals in such a short time, but maybe he wasn't writing his own after action reports. If you read the Wa Po story from Sunday, it talks about how Kerry and other vets tried to blow up a few tons of rice and Kerry didn't run fast enough, that's how he got the shrapnel in his ass. I think the close to combat and the injury are supposed to be connected in time directly.

I don't dismiss anyone's account. I'm desperately trying to avoid reading anyone's account. I think that what is people's 35 year old recollections during a time of loud noises, adrenaline, bullets and boats is likely not accurate on either side, which is why I'm more likely to buy into the written reports from that time (though I admit, also, that those are likely to be inaccuate). If Kerry didn't run fast enough when he was blowing up rice, he still deserves a purple heart: he was in combat, and was wounded. That's what the award/honor signifies. If an engineer fails to disarm a bomb several miles behind the line, and loses a limb, does he deserve the purple heart? Suppose it's a US, not enemy, explosive: does he still deserve it? The purple heart does not distinguish between any of these events, and for good reason: they are all combat related (nobody would have gotten hurt, anywhere, if the combat hadn't been occuring).

As for the issue of Kerry's post-Vietnam testimony and activities, I still maintain the position I laid out in my response to marris: freedom of speech trumps any supposed demoralization. How was Kerry supposed to protest the war? He belived it was wrong, he believed that Americans were acting as war criminals, and he said so. He might have been wrong (certainly some Americans did do some horrific things there), but he acted within the system to stop things that he felt should be stopped. What's wrong with that.?

As for military records, I have no idea why Kerry hasn't released all of his. Maybe because Bush hasn't released all of his? (I think a full disclosure by all sides will hurt Bush more than Kerry, because that AWOL thing looks more and more likely: see this Calpundit/Washington Monthly post, and follow the links. Kevin Drum (Calpundint) has done a good job investigating this and following where it leads.)

As for starting a debate on Iraq, I'm sorry no one else took you up on it. I think that Kerry could easily convince NATO to send troops, and convince other countries to become involved in a civilian reconstruction: all it would take would be a loosening of US control over Iraq. The key has always been that the US would dictate what would happen in Iraq, and the US invited anyone who would play by those rules to come to the party. Naturally, most refused. If we want outside help, we need to reliquish political control so that other states can have a say in the direction that Iraq is moving. Then they will be willing to pony up resources.

Beyond that, yes, it might just take a great many more troops to fix the security situation and train an Iraqi force. The former US Army Chief of Staff (Shalishkavili?) argued that it would take over 300,000 before the war, and was fired for suggesting a number that high. If we used the same number of troops per civilian in Iraq that we used more or less successfully in Bosnia over the last few years, we should have over 300,000. Since we don't have that many, if we are going to do this right, we need allies - so we're back to relinquishing control to encourage some to help us. Kerry can't get more specific because he's the candidate, and can't directly negotiate with other states to actually start to hash this out. And even if you think the plan is to vague, it's a better one (even given it's vagueness) than the one Bush is operating under, which isn't really getting us anywhere (Sistani had to fly back from medical treatment in London just to attempt to end Sadr's uprising, and may still not succeed. Sistani may accomplish more than the Marines can? Who's plan is working?).

Binky, if he would only release his full record he could prove slander in court, and we could see exactly his past actions instead of just the medals he got for them. I would welcome a debate about the points I put forward previously regarding Kerry's plan for Iraq. I would like to see Kerry make a break from his past indictments of war heroes, but the fact that he hasn't done so makes me reticent to believe he views this as a human mistake for which I could forgive him.

So, as I have suspected, you and I are in complete agreement about something. But we both know that complete revelation from either candidate on the subject of war records is unlikely.

And, Baltar is going to strart a thread for the "plan debate." More fun to come!

I am just curious--could someone who supports Sen. Kerry please succinctly articulate his specific proposals for improved foreign policy? Saying "greater international support" is sort of like saying that his economic plan is "more money for everyone"--defining a plan not by its means but by its objectives. I have seen the allegation that Kerry's plans are specific enough to debate them, but I would appreciate a summary, since I have only seen sound bites and generalities in the mainstream media. Please enlighten me.

AngryMacaque,

Kerry's official website lists his plan for Iraq here. It is this set generalities that we are calling Kerry's "plan". I'll grant you that it is a rather general idea, but I think that it has to be at this point. He is, in very general terms, suggesting we give up our almost complete control over the nuts and bolts of the process, outcome and reconstruction of Iraq in return for more money and troops from other (likely NATO) countries to help with reconstruction and rebuilding (not just concrete and steel, but also training, etc.). It seems to me that this is about as specific as he can get, as he cannot (as a candidate) negotiate with any other country or set of countries in order to turn the general plan into a specific one. As I noted a comment or two above, in order to have the same troop to civilian ratio as we did in Bosnia (which is only mostly, not completely, a success) we need over 300,000 soldiers in Iraq. The US does not have that number of troops, and we must ask for help if we want to achieve a reasonable level of security. Read the Kerry plan (it is short) and at least let us debate the generalities.

I have no interest in wading into this debate at this late date now that a new topic has been proposed (what fireworks I've missed by not checking in here regularly for the last couple of days), but just to fill in a fact related to one of Baltar's replies - it was Gen. Eric Shinseki who was pushed out as Army Chief of Staff after giving the Congress an accurate assessment of the number of troops that would be needed in Iraq (a number vastly higher than the civilians in the Pentagon wanted discussed).

Thanks Armand. I sort of knew I was off on the name of the Army Chief of Staff, but was rushed and didn't have the time to find it on the web.

"There is no credible evidence that public protest actually demoralizes the troops. Moreover, if such a thing were true (and I doubt it), it would be a good thing." Baltar Aug. 26th

"I never said demoralizing the troops is a good thing." Baltar Aug. 28th

Baltar = Teresa Heinz Kerry? Are you going to tell me to "shove it" now?

last night i caught on CSPAN some of kerry's testimony before Congress in '71 (i think?). one point about which he was particularly emphatic was that he would draw a distinction between "guilt" and "responsibility." he acknowledged, for example, that if the alleged atrocities committed by calley and his men were true, than he was "guilty" in a way that warranted prosecution. more broadly, however, he emphasized that he had come before congress not to demand prosecution of those receiving unclear orders and ambiguous or contradictory mandates, but rather to call to account those high officials who truly were "responsible" for the untenable position in which field officers found themselves. he said that if the ground troops were to be prosecuted than the highest reaches of the chain of caommand must be as well, all of which were not invitations to indeed prosecute, but rather reasons offered for why america needed to pull out of southeast asia as soon as possible.

this idea that he simply called for the prosecution of 2.5 million troops, or that he explicitly sought to sully every united states soldier, is a reductio ad absurdam requiring willful ignorance of the many subtleties of kerry's various public comments. haven't we all had enough of that laziness by now -- if not on the evening news, than at least in a forum for more robust discussion, as this putatively is?

to reiterate (and elaborate now that my memory is somewhat refreshed by last night replay of his testimony), kerry alleged that the environment created by the highest levels of commands directly led to the institution of search and destroy missions, the use of free-fire zones, and other combat methods specifically prohibited by the geneva convention_. if john o'neill had been a defense attorney, his every objection to john kerry's assertions on dick cavett would have been overruled. if had been a witness, he would have been censured for failing to answer kerry's direct questions.

regardless of questions of kerry's service, he was in country, he did speak for a group of veterans and not just himself (some of whom presumably had seen the tactics to which he referred), and his testimony before congress and elsewhere, whether it ultimately worked to his political gain, was a gamble and took a great deal of moral courage. for speaking so eloquently in defense of principle i admire him.

one can only hope that enough people recognize a straw man argument when they see it. if democrats could light a match within a mile of bush's campaign, the whole thing would be ashes in minutes. (is that a better metaphor, morris?)

GetReal,

Come on, at least quote me in context. What I said was:

There is no credible evidence that public protest actually demoralizes the troops. Moreover, if such a thing were true (and I doubt it), it would be a good thing. This is a democracy, and the will of the people is supposed to be reflected in the policies of the government. If enough people don't like what the government is doing, they protest and get the government to change. If the military is supposed to be an apolitical branch of the government implementing policy (fighting to achieve a political goal) and if domestic protests make the military nervous about what they are doing, then the system works.

I was refering specifically to instances in democracies where the military is sent by the government and the voters/polity/people disagree with that policy. Certainly there are constitutional, Congressional, legal, and even military checks on the President/executive branch sending the military off to do something that shouldn't be done. My argument is that an additional check is, in a sense, public opinion. If the military can be demoralized (and no one has yet pointed me to any evidence that this can happen), the the more people who are protesting then the greater the demoralization, and the more people who are protesting, the more the policy in general should be examined and perhaps rejected. The military should be an arm of American policy, not government policy (American policy and government policy should be the same thing, but everyone recognizes the potential for abuse of power or mistakes, which is why you build in checks and balances), and protests and public debate (if it causes a "check" on the military) are a relevant part of restraining the military.

That was the context. I still stand by what I was trying to say. I apologize if I was unclear. That being said, your post cites me saying that "I never said demoralizing the troops is a good thing" on August 28th (which, unless I missed a day, is tomorrow). What the heck are you citing?

To conclude:

1. The troops in Iraq are not demoralized by public debate. Prove to me that they are.

2. The troops should be demoralized if the mass of the American public thinks they are doing a bad thing. This prevents tyranny (if the military is used domestically) or executive abuse of power (if the military is used externally).

3. Protection of the Constitution (e.g., free speech) trumps issues of demoralization through public policy debate (which, as I have repeatedly asked, no one has shown me there is any evidence of).

Is this clear now?

"I never said demoralizing the troops is a good thing. " Baltar, Aug. 26th -- sorry, finger slipped.

That's what I am citing -- in other words "copying and pasting" so you can't deny you wrote it.

It seems to me that he has not denied what he wrote, but he denied the implication you are inferring. My reading of the comment is not the demoralization of troops is a good thing in itself but that if said demoralization took place and led to a more democratic policy outcome, that it would be a "good thing" i.e. healthy for the democratic process.

I also disagree with Baltar on the question of demoralization, by the way. I think it is happening. From talking to friends, family and acquaintances who are military I have heard quite a bit of discouragement and dissatisfaction. (Yes, I know, this is anecdotal and not statistically significant.) The big "but" here though, is that none of the negativity I have heard has had anything to do with public opinion, but rather with extended tours of duty, lack of proper equipment for the troops, and economic hardships of family members back home.

GetReal,

I wrote it and meant it. As I said before in my previous response to you: look at the context.

I'm arguing about the role of the military in a democracy, and the effect that democracy (and the public debate and argument inherent to democracy) can have on the military. I'm arguing that preserving the democracy is more important than preserving military morale. That's as simple as I can make it. Do you agree or disagree with that statement?

Binky, I'll agree that there is anecdotal evidence of demoralization/disillusionment. It is, as you note, anecdotal. I have not seen one single article, weblog, or newspaper argue that the military is performing less than efficiently because of demoralization (whatever the source). Find me one and we can have an argument.

Baltar:

Your argument is quite circular, don't you agree? You argue that: Preserving democracy is more important than preserving military morale. But, in the world we face today, don't we need a powerful, energized, and inspired military in order to protect democracy? What comes first? Democracy or a strong empassioned military? I would argue democracy is just theory without a strong military to back it up.

I have no argument that the military is "performing less than efficiently because of demoralization," because our military is serving this country with amazing skill, passion, and dedication.

However, there was an excellent, recent article in the NY Times by a helo pilot now in Iraq writing: "When critics of the war say their advocacy is on behalf of those of us risking our lives here, it's a type of false patriotism. I believe that when Americans say they "support our troops," it should include supporting our mission, not just sending us care packages. They don't have to believe in the cause as I do; but they should not denigrate it. That only aids the enemy in defeating us strategically." GLEN G. BUTLER, Over Najaf, Fighting for Des Moines, NY Times, Aug. 23, 2004.

Joshua,
I never said Kerry wanted all troops prosecuted for war crimes. Of course he wouldn't, since he confessed to such crimes himself and never took the officer's responsibility in going against such orders and reporting them to a higher CO. He is himself an officer who should be held responsible but never took such responsibility or he would have been court marshalled. My complaint is that he dishonored the deeds of so many heroes who were serving what they believed not only was in the best interest of their home nation, but also the Vietnamese. Surely, there were exceptions who didn't believe in the war, but Kerry slandered them all by talking about the systematic nature of war crimes. To think of something as difficult as the war in Vietnam reminds me of Frankl's account of the concentration camps in Germany...Frankl notes he would never fault anyone for what they did to survive, but gives enormous credit to those who acted virtuously even in such extreme circumstances, unlike Kerry who never focuses on those who sacrificed for each other and the Vietnamese people. Certainly there were war crimes in Iraq, but the book Stolen Valor recounts many of the cases talked about by Kerry and other protesters that turned out to be fakes. What O'Neil said in the interview is key: let's prosecute whoever was involved in war crimes. I've heard many very keen on doing such things about Abu Gharib, but should we overlook incidents that occured thirty years ago? Kerry wants to blame an environment created by upper level officers for his own actions, just as the democrats want to blame such an environment at the CIA for intelligence failures in the current administration. Essentially what this boils down to is, "I'm not going to speak up because people might not like me anymore." I have a grave feeling about supporting someone for president who makes such a distinction between guilt and responsibility. I can't help but be reminded about what the definition of is is. The idea that if someone at the lowest level of command commits an atrocity then their superior should be prosecuted for it is what's truly ad absurdum. Does he understand that by extension of this logic, once he's president he'll be put on trial for all the misdeeds of his citizens? It seems like if Dick Cavett was a courtroom, Kerry could just as easily be censured for not answering direct questions about his own involvement or others he witnessed commit war crimes. Yes, he would be taking the risk of being censured, although his crewmates certainly speak of no such environment but the one Kerry himself created. This is what people with the moral courage you attribute to Kerry really do.

Baltar, It would be simple for Kerry to actually prove libel in court if he released his full military record. Since the Kerry campaign has already gotten awfully silent about his first purple heart and his Christmas in Cambodia, I don't think we'll be seeing any lawsuits filed anytime soon.

Baltar, it seems there is a difference between an engineer trying to disable ENEMY ordinance and getting shrapnel from one's own grenade. People don't get purple hearts for accidents in training camp when they shoot themselves in the foot. Yes, memories can be faulty after 35 years or 35 minutes, but regarding the incident when Kerry left the crippled 3 boat, the explosion of a mine would lead to what's called a flashbulb memory, like the way many people remember what they were doing when they found out Kennedy was shot, and these are more reliable even after many years. It's my understanding that reporters have searched for Bush's records and haven't been able to find anything specific; they searched for Kerry's, found out they exist, but were only released 6 pages of over a hundred. If Kerry wanted to validate his own version of events, he could at least file an FOI on his own behalf and then have this released. I'm not as certain as you other NATO nations would be forthcoming with Spain and other nations pulling out of Iraq in response to terror tactics: I don't think this is a matter of political control. Also, do you think we should give up so much control as to put U.S. troops under the command of other nations? We have the best trained military in the world (except for maybe the Israelis, and I don't see them helping out), and I don't think we should risk U.S. casualties due to ineptitude of other security forces. Certainly the Bush records do raise questions, although I do not jump to the conclusions of your "progressive" source. It talks about how the records do not sync up, which to me is characteristic of bad record keeping rather than a certain conclusion based on one set of records. My military exposure doesn't include much more than a semester of college ROTC, but this is consistent with my experience. Also, if Bush was grounded, he could easily have been assigned to a duty away from the flight center and actually not been observed by the CO who supervises pilots who would have still been Bush's CO. Certainly Sistani has accomplished what the Marines all along hoped he would; nobody is served by bloodshed in Iraq. Bush is still CinC and if he was as bloodthirsty and committed to violence as his only solution as you make out, there would be a demolished mosque and hundreds of thousands more dead muslims to show for it. Maybe you don't get the fact that the U.S. military has the power to go ANYWHERE in Iraq it wants, but it has limited its role to great degree to putting down violent uprisings that Iraq's own forces cannot handle. Bush has favored policies that reach diplomatic solutions all along, seeking support from the U.N. several times and allowing time for local peacemakers to accomplish as much as they can; but he has had the moral courage to pursue what is in the national and the human interest when beset by the greedy, jealous and hateful who would oppose our nation and a free Iraq.

GetReal

No, it's not circular. Democracy comes first. I've made that part of my argument abundantly clear. Any country needs a military strong enough to protect both the country itself and its national interests. What size that should be for the US is debatable. Certainly there are other democracies in the world, large (the UK) and small (Costa Rica): none of them have a military even a fraction of our size. Would you argue that all of them are vulnerable because they lack this protection?

You write:

What comes first? Democracy or a strong empassioned military? I would argue democracy is just theory without a strong military to back it up.

And here we fundamentally disagree. If the military is more important than the democracy, it's not a democracy. If the laws, rules and norms of the society are subservient to the higher goal of a stronger/more capable military, it is no longer a democratic society. At best it might be something like ancient Sparta, at worst it degenerates into totalitarianism - certainly there are a number of societies from history we could discuss that raised military capabilities as a higher societal goal than the rule of law and free elections.

Your quote of one soldier interviewed in the NYTimes does not make your case. It is anecdotal evidence at best. The fact that a single soldier is unhappy about the policy debates happening domestically is not evidence of general (army wide) lack of effectiveness because of general demoralization.

Moreover, I think it helps me prove my point. If Mr. Butler is forced to confront a large level of domestic discontent that makes him uncomfortable, isn't that precisely the public opinion "check" I described above? It would be easy for Mr. Butler to ignore a lunatic fringe of protestors who come out every time the US uses force anywhere in the world. The fact that a greater than average number of people are publicly debating this military exercise, and that the military recognizes this and is unhappy about the level of support it is receiving, helps democracy retain it's control over the military. This is, in short, the system operating. The fact that there is no demonstrated reduction in military efficiency means only that the war is not sufficiently unpopular. However, that is a real possibility, and one the military has to face. It's that fact (as well as the other, constitutional, checks and balances) that keeps the executive from using the military for whatever it wants.

Look at it this way. If some President went nuts, and ordered the Army to invade Canada (or pick another relatively popular and allied country), wouldn't you want popular opinion against it to be part of the checks that keep something like that from happening?

Morris,

Why don't we agree to put off all of the debates on service records until both candidates have released all their service records. I don't know the state (what percentage of the total) each have released, but both could stand to put them out. Or, we could agree that it's pretty irrelevant to the debate about who's a better president, and move on (the fact that Kerry made it an issue doesn't mean we have to pay attention, just as whatever Bush makes an issue isn't something we have to debate).

As to the Purple Heart issue, it is my understanding that wounds received as a result of action against an enemy are eligible for the award (note: this is not the same as "wounds caused directly by the enemy"). See this long military document (warning: big PDF file). In particular, the paragraph:

It is not intended that such a strict interpretation of the requirement for the wound or injury to be caused by direct result of hostile action be taken that it would preclude the award being made to deserving personnel. Commanders must also take into consideration the circumstances surrounding an injury, even if it appears to meet the criteria. (From page 10.)

The intention seems clear: its not just about the enemy directly wounding a soldier, but in cases where the military is engaged with an enemy, any soldier who suffers a wound is eligible, including those who are wounded by friendly fire. No, you don’t get a purple heart for wounds in training camp (though, it is possible, given the regulation cited above), but you would for disarming your own military’s bomb and it goes off.

You write:

I'm not as certain as you other NATO nations would be forthcoming with Spain and other nations pulling out of Iraq in response to terror tactics: I don't think this is a matter of political control.

My belief is that Spain pulled out (as well as other states) because the cost/benefit calculation they were running wasn’t going in their favor. The US made it clear that anyone could be a part of the “Coalition of the Willing” as long as they played by rules set by the US. Spain, and others, bailed out because they didn’t like the rules, and had no ability to change them (the US wasn’t negotiating). I think it is very clear that if the US allowed others to have a say in how the country is run, they would be more willing to invest troops and resources. Additionally, if we could get more troops and resources, we could substantially reduce the violence, making it easier for everyone.

You write:

Also, do you think we should give up so much control as to put U.S. troops under the command of other nations? We have the best trained military in the world (except for maybe the Israelis, and I don't see them helping out), and I don't think we should risk U.S. casualties due to ineptitude of other security forces.

Yes, I think we should. I’m not sure really how “inept” the other forces are. We’re not talking about letting other militaries lead the US Army against hordes of Soviet tanks (which, clearly, the US was best equipped to lead). We’re talking about letting small groups of US soldiers work under the direction of other countries doing small-scale things (counter-insurgency, reconstruction, etc.). Clearly, there are other militaries who have experience at these tasks – arguably they have more experience than we do (the Turkish army putting down the Kurds, the Indian Army fighting counter-insurgency in Kashmir, etc.). In addition, the US has made it a policy to never allow US soldiers to serve under foreign commands – it might be a good idea to change that policy under certain circumstances, and there is no better time than now. It would go a long way towards letting the world know we want their help and are willing to listen. The simplest, easiest way to improve the security situation in Iraq is to put more friendly soldiers on the ground – and there are no more US soldiers to send. We need bodies, and we must compromise to get them, because our cupboard is bare. Oh, and the Israeli army crack is beneath you. That would start a war far beyond the borders of Iraq.

You don’t believe the critics who say that Bush’s service records indicate the potential for AWOL. Fine, as I’ve said before, this debate doesn’t really interest me.

However, I take great exception to this:

Maybe you don't get the fact that the U.S. military has the power to go ANYWHERE in Iraq it wants, but it has limited its role to great degree to putting down violent uprisings that Iraq's own forces cannot handle. Bush has favored policies that reach diplomatic solutions all along, seeking support from the U.N. several times and allowing time for local peacemakers to accomplish as much as they can; but he has had the moral courage to pursue what is in the national and the human interest when beset by the greedy, jealous and hateful who would oppose our nation and a free Iraq.

I think you are fundamentally misreading the reports on the ground in Iraq. We clearly do not have the power to go anywhere we want. There are whole sections of cities we dare not enter (Najaf for one, Falluja is another, and big chunks of the slums of Baghdad to top it off). I suppose technically we could enter them, but it would take a division full of armored vehicles, and we had better be out by nightfall. Why do you think the Marines fighting around Najaf for the last week were fighting? They couldn’t just wander in – they got shot at, when they tried. Hence, they couldn’t just “go there.”

I’m not sure what you mean by “Bush favored policies that reach diplomatic solutions all along.” Do you mean within Iraq or outside of it? Internationally, Bush favored “take it or leave it” policies; allowing others to contribute to a US defined and led effort both before, during and after the war. That is a diplomatic solution, but not one that encouraged other countries to assist us – notice the great lack of help from the rest of the world. If you are referring to events within Iraq, the same criticism holds. He is willing to let the insurgents surrender, but that is hardly negotiations. Recent history does not indicate that Bush is willing to work with the powers on the ground Iraq: Bremer did not negotiate with Sadr, and only belatedly tried to negotiate with Sistani. These are not the actions of a man who tries negotiations first. In his defense, the situation in Iraq got screwed up very badly, very quickly and I’m not sure any negotiations with any figures would have prevented the mess there.

It is the last clause of your post that is particularly difficult. I’m not sure what “moral courage” Bush is showing. He’s following a policy that (I hope) he believes in. I’d like to believe that he has good policy analysts behind him, who have some reasonable evidence that the policy is following will lead to a good outcome, but I’m not hopeful. (This is a long-time hobby horse of mine: see this post.) Politically, he knows he must find an improvement in the situation in Iraq without backpedaling and changing his policies: if he publicly makes a radical course change, he looks bad politically. Hence, he almost has no choice but to continue to, in my opinion, reinforce failure.

And why is this in the national or human interest? No WMD (so no real threat to any of our allies or interests in the Middle East), no real connection to Al Quaeda (though they are there now). It is arguably making our security situation worse by creating additional terrorists who hate the US for the damage we did to their families and friends, tying up US forces that could be used to hunt terrorists elsewhere in the world, reducing the ability of the US to military threaten states that have a genuine WMD program (Iran and North Korea, who both recognize that the US physically could not invade either right now), and alienating longtime allies who might help us with the other issues we want to deal with (global trade, AIDS, etc.).

And finally, just to set everybody off, how are the “greedy, jealous and hateful” insurgents in Iraq all that much different, morally, from any other freedom fighters in the world. If they are fighting for “self determination” (the right to determine their own governments and laws under which they want to live), why are we opposed to that? We used to support things like that, I thought.

Kerry's Iraq policy may be vague (I tried to start a threat on that, here, but no one bit), but I firmly believe that internationalizing the conflict, at the cost of giving up complete US control (we would still have substantial influence, just not control), is the best method for solving the current problems. Only Kerry seems to be pushing in that direction.Whew. I need a beer.

Baltar,
I'm going to bring as many of these threads to a close as possible so we may start working on something new, following Binky's example to focus on common ground where it's available.
I think we can agree both candidates should release all records available to them. I think we also believe neither has a record so stunning that it alone should be a reason to elect either one president. I see where you're going with the argument on his first purple heart, and if we want to conclude this debate I'll keep my remarks succint. I'm sure this may technically qualify according to a commander's discretion as a purple heart, but in my heart it seems this particular wound is more akin to a training accident, because rice is not a hostile enemy, and the treating of heroic awards so lightly led the swift boat vets to make running jokes about nominating oneself for a purple heart whenever they got a scratch. Do you see how accepting a purple heart for a wound that is not serious in an action that required no particular valor casts doubt not only on Kerry's other medals, but on the medals of all heroes? This is not partisan, I would say the same thing of Bob Dole. In fact, I had such doubts about Bob Dole's character (though he's a hell of a comedian) that I didn't vote for him when he ran for president even though I am a conservative on many issues. At the same time, I don't mean to diminish the wound itself; there are people killed in training, serving their country and they deserve great honor. I just don't think the purple heart is the particular honor they deserve.

I would agree we should increase the resources available for protecting a free Iraq, but I will have to agree to disagree with you about Spain's willingness to participate following the devastating terror attacks against them; I think it would be political suicide for their new leadership.

Yes, I realized the Israeli war angle when I typed it, I just thought it would be funny since I heard that line from the Dragnet movie a couple days ago. I'm sure the Indians have had experience fighting insurgents in Kashmir, I'm not sure they're better at it than we are since they're still fighting insurgents in Kashmir. I'll be honest, I think before other consideration this comes down to a purely political angle; any president who loses even half a platoon of troops while they're under the command of another nation would lose immense popular support. I've heard mention within these comments that popular support should determine what wars we fight as a nation, and I think it's only realistic that the people of this nation (save perhaps a few intellectual liberals) would abandon a president who takes that gamble and loses. We are a very independent nation, for better or worse, and such an incident in a political ad would look ten times worse than Willie Horton.

Perhaps my phrasing was unclear, I did not mean there are not streets where GIs would be shot walking down (although of course we have these in the U.S. too). What I mean is, we can bring enough artillery, smart bombs, cruise missiles and napalm down on any street that we can kill everyone who might possibly shoot a G.I. who could afterwards walk, whistling, down the crumbled road.

Part of our disagreement comes down to ideology. You've heard this argument before: we're not at war with Al Quada but with a kind of fundamentalist ideology (in this case religion) that suggests only certain types of people have value, an ideology that grows like a mushroom in the darkness of a closed society (how do you like THAT metaphor?). What we're learning so very recently in psychology is that racism is not taught as we thought for so long; racism (and hatred of women, Jews, gays, the disabled) develops when tolerance is not taught. We have to break down these walls so that we can let some light of tolerance into their worlds, some hope that as in our society, fewer and fewer each generation will develop bigotry and the hatred that fosters. I would say that the rights of women and Kurds alone justify our war. For every American who has died in combat, hundreds of Iraqis were "politically assassinated", and hundreds more would have been if we had not "occupied" their country. I understand the obvious dilemna: we have to protect their right to worship a religion that supports this dismissal of basic human worth. Thomas Jefferson talked about a struggle against the tyranny of the mind, and this is our struggle in Iraq. I believe Bush has such a vision for Iraq and the world, and his decision to pursue it reveals the moral courage I believe him to hold.

That covers the hateful. When I spoke of greedy I mean this Al Sadr, who seems to have greed for political power and be willing to let so many who love him die, for his glory, just as some would say other tyrants in history have done the same. I do have a great difficulty empathisizing with those living in a society where they have rights (like the new Iraq, where they will have the right to vote within a year) but would sacrifice human life for their greed for more; you may call them freedom fighters, but I would call them names I cannot civilly type. At a societal level, I don't know how you could support these people and the rights of others to live and exercise their own rights at the same time. We do not live in a perfect world.

When I speak of jealousy, I believe that more than anything is at the heart of France's opposition to U.S. action in Iraq. I think they are desperately trying to maintain their influence throughout the world (they are like the Bathists, witnessing their own decline), and since Saddam was giving them special considerations I believe France was acting out of their self interest in opposing the Iraqi freedom war. I'm sure you may disagree, but this is what I meant by jealosy.

I would also dispute your arguments that there was no connection to Al Quaeda, though there has been no substantiated connection to 9/11. While they had Afghanistan in which to hide, Al Quaeda didn't need to seek much support for Iraq. It's true we have not found WMDs, but even Hans Bliks and other intelligence services thought they had or were developing them, and if Saddam hadn't been so arrogant as to kick out the inspectors years before, his brothers would be happily torturing the Iraqi soccer team right now.

Certainly in the short run we will have more enemies, but how long should we wait before dismantling the closed political systems that foster terrorism? Who else is going to do it? It is these systems that are the gravest threat to our country, not the individual terrorist cells that grow within them. I don't think a "good" outcome was possible within the amount of time since liberation, although many people (Kurds) are breathing easier already. As you say, even negotiations may not have prevented the mess there. This transition may allow citizens of Iraq to be free from the societal reinforcement of the ideological mistakes of Iraq's past.

Baltar:
Thank you for your reply and the link. I also appreciate your candor when you concede that Sen. Kerry's plans are less than specific. This is at the core of the problem with modern American politics.

Both sides (Rep. and Dem.) debate only in terms of sound bites, and a political critic or concerned citizen can only look to the foundation of these soundbites to glean any menaing from them. President Bush received excoriating criticism for his assertions re: WMD's because the foundation was found to be somewhat lacking, yet Kerry asks for the voters to ignore the underpinnings of his one-liner assertions.

His "plans" for Iraq are simply too nebulous to warrant any response in a debate, since as I indicated before, his plans are goals with no stated means to achieve them. PResident Bush is not exactly eloquent re: his own plans, but at least we can look at his course of conduct since his election and judge it. What no one on the left seems willing to concede is that based on that record, President Bush is doing amazingly well in the face of an unprecedented global dilemma-how does war work when there are no clearly defined sides? Kerry ignores that central issue by responding with platitudes.

Similarly, Kerry was perfectly happy to use the sound bite "Reporting for duty" without illustrating why such an action on his part should be inspiring or encouraging. We are left to once again "go to the record", which is where the Swift vets come in. Sen. Kerry's record in Viet Nam, when combined with his extremely inconsistent but liberal voting record, reflects someone that I frankly don't want leading my side into the future of potential global chaos.

Other nations respect consistency over time. The Arabs, both as nation states and as terror cells are notoriously unstable and thus a huge threat, while France has conducted nuclear weapons tests to the chagrin and condemnation of her allies without apology. We continue to deal with France because we can at least understand the logic of securing national security and self-interest as a global power.

The problem with the U.S. is that there is no consistency because of the ease with which opposition parties (usually the democrats) can critique and undermine the position of the leadership. I'm not suggesting a restriction on their right to do so, but merely pointing out that if U.S. policy is inconveniencing you as a European country waiting to exploit Iraq, simply wait for the Dems to get in office. Kerry's vagueness encourages this perception, since he will need to supplicate himself before NATO to make his plan work.

If Kerry wanted my respect, he should either offer some specifics or concede that Bush has done a good job and he will continue in that vein and focus on domestic policy. INstead, he has made his qualifications as CinC a central issue, and whatever his record 32 years ago, it doesn't measure up to Bush for the past 4 years.

Thanks again for your help and candor.

AM

P.S. Morris, it's "court-martial", not "court-marshall".

OK, first, I am not sure instability=threat. Second, aren't democracies - by nature - somewhat inconsistent?

Morris,

I think we can leave behind this debate about medals and events of 30+ years ago. My final comment would be that I think it is insane to reject the US military’s decision to award medals to anybody. Do you really want to bring American politics to the point where no official records are accepted as accurate, and everything is questioned again? Find Bush’s college professors and ask them to re-grade his schoolwork? I think politics needs to draw some lines, and this is a big, bright one: if the military says you won a medal, we accept you won a medal.

I wasn’t really thinking of Spain as an example for the section on getting additional international support. I don’t think Spain itself will offer more troops at this point, but my argument is that by allowing other counties a greater say in the process and goals in Iraq (giving up some of our complete control), we get other countries (Germany, France, Russia, who else knows who might participate) to help out. That is how we get more troops on the ground.

I argued for putting US troops under foreign control in some circumstances. Your rebuttal:

I'll be honest, I think before other consideration this comes down to a purely political angle; any president who loses even half a platoon of troops while they're under the command of another nation would lose immense popular support. I've heard mention within these comments that popular support should determine what wars we fight as a nation, and I think it's only realistic that the people of this nation (save perhaps a few intellectual liberals) would abandon a president who takes that gamble and loses. We are a very independent nation, for better or worse, and such an incident in a political ad would look ten times worse than Willie Horton.

My answer is simple. I agree with you: a President who does lose US troops while they are serving under a foreign command will take a political hit. I hope it would be a survivable one, but it depends on the circumstances. Here is the key point: we cannot win Iraq without more troops, so whoever is President will have to take that risk. The sooner the better.

Then we get to the heart of the disagreement:

What we're learning so very recently in psychology is that racism is not taught as we thought for so long; racism (and hatred of women, Jews, gays, the disabled) develops when tolerance is not taught. We have to break down these walls so that we can let some light of tolerance into their worlds, some hope that as in our society, fewer and fewer each generation will develop bigotry and the hatred that fosters. I would say that the rights of women and Kurds alone justify our war. For every American who has died in combat, hundreds of Iraqis were "politically assassinated", and hundreds more would have been if we had not "occupied" their country. I understand the obvious dilemna: we have to protect their right to worship a religion that supports this dismissal of basic human worth. Thomas Jefferson talked about a struggle against the tyranny of the mind, and this is our struggle in Iraq. I believe Bush has such a vision for Iraq and the world, and his decision to pursue it reveals the moral courage I believe him to hold.

You are coming perilously close to arguing that we need to save them from themselves. This is, frankly, impossible. In my opinion, at absolute best, we can remove a dictatorial regime, physically rebuild the country, and step back and let them decide what they want to do next. It is not possible to teach them tolerance, democracy, reason, the rule of law, or anything else political/religious/societal. They can choose to adopt those practices or beliefs, but we cannot give it to them. We can, as I say, provide the opportunity for them to choose that path, but we cannot actually make that choice for them. Why? Two reasons. First, it won’t work. You cannot force a country of 25 million to have an entirely different belief system that they likely don’t understand (it does take education) and may not want (they are a different culture with different values). Second, other states in history have tried this before. It was called colonialism, and it didn’t really work very well (it’s history is, at best, spotty, but perhaps Binky can provide a more accurate scorecard on the successes of attempted colonizations). Moreover, it hurts us as a democracy: we would need to station several hundred thousand US troops over there for a generation or so (re-education takes time) and this hurts us economically, and, more importantly, is inimical to what we believe as Americans. We’re supposed to believe in allowing people to be democratic and make their own choices. If we force people, that isn’t in keeping with our own ideologies, and that will hurt our own democracy.

Put more simply: what if the Iraqis want to be an Islamic Republic that discriminates against minorities and women (like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait)? What do we do, then?

Bush almost certainly has a vision that he is trying to accomplish. Vision is good. But people can have mistaken visions (David Koresh, Charles Manson, Woodrow Wilson, etc). These people had visions, but the visions were a bad idea. The fact Bush has a vision is not sufficient. We have to analyze the vision (is it a good idea?), and then ask if his plan to achieve the vision is feasible (can we do it?). I think Bush’s “vision” is to try and force the Iraqis to adopt something like our values and ideals: to save them from themselves. As I noted above, I think this is impossible.

What, in your words, is Bush’s vision? I’m genuinely curious.

However, whatever his vision, he has awful implementation. Very little has gone right, once the formal war (against Hussien’s government/army) ended. This is the “nuance” thing, that he has said he doesn’t do (the paragraph with the quote is just over halfway down the page), and this is as critical as the vision thing – perhaps more (we can debate that). I don’t really care how good anybody’s vision is if they can’t put it in practice. That’s what is getting screwed up. In order to accomplish “peace in Iraq” or an “end to Islamic Fundamentalism” or “bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East” or whatever the vision actually is will require more troops, more money, more help, more international political support, and generally more of a bunch of things (that’s what I was alluding to with the Spain stuff). It’s this end of Bush’s managerial style that drives a bunch of us nuts, not necessarily the vision. Bush isn’t interested in debate over process - he actively rejects it (something I’ve blogged about before). As James Traub notes in today’s New York Times:

It's hard to think of any administration that has been as brutally dismissive of opposing points of view as this one has been, whether the issue is tax cuts or international treaties or planning for postwar Iraq.

So we can’t debate Bush’s “vision” or the process for achieving the vision, else we’re labeled “traitors” and accused of supporting terrorism (something that has more or less happened right here in this thread to me). Meanwhile, things get worse and worse over there (in my opinion). I think there would be greater “moral courage” in an honest debate about both the vision and the process for achieving it: the country would be much more united and willing to accept the outcome (whatever it is) as a result of that public process. But there is no sign of that from the President.

I’ll try to finish quickly. You write:

When I speak of jealousy, I believe that more than anything is at the heart of France's opposition to U.S. action in Iraq. I think they are desperately trying to maintain their influence throughout the world (they are like the Bathists, witnessing their own decline), and since Saddam was giving them special considerations I believe France was acting out of their self interest in opposing the Iraqi freedom war. I'm sure you may disagree, but this is what I meant by jealosy.

A simple comment: France is an independent, sovereign state, with different position in the world, and a different view of where the world should go. Why shouldn’t they act in their own self-interest? Isn’t that what all states do? Isn’t that what they are supposed to do?

As for Al Quaeda, I have not seen any evidence that there was anything beyond a single meeting between Hussien’s Iraq and Al Quaeda that never went anywhere. There was never any substantive collaboration on resources, intelligence or operations of any kind. If you know otherwise, point me there.

As for your final paragraph:

Certainly in the short run we will have more enemies, but how long should we wait before dismantling the closed political systems that foster terrorism? Who else is going to do it? It is these systems that are the gravest threat to our country, not the individual terrorist cells that grow within them. I don't think a "good" outcome was possible within the amount of time since liberation, although many people (Kurds) are breathing easier already. As you say, even negotiations may not have prevented the mess there. This transition may allow citizens of Iraq to be free from the societal reinforcement of the ideological mistakes of Iraq's past.

My primary argument with this is target. Why Iraq? If you want to start dismantling closed political systems, why start with Iraq? 15 of the 19 Sept. 11th terrorists came from Saudi Arabia. Pakistan is trending more fundamentalist Islamic, and clearly hiding terrorists. North Korea has a serious nuclear program. Iran is bigger, stronger and more dangerous in any category than Iraq, but has a vocal democratic younger generation: one could easily argue that Iran was an easier system to dislodge than Iraq. Iraq was not the most serious threat to US interests by many different standards, yet we ended up there. Why? If Bush is serious about removing closed systems, both for the freedom it brings those people, and the security it brings us, why start with Iraq?

I need another beer.

OK, I was really, really hoping this line of debate would end, but since it hasn't ... I guess I'll throw in a few comments on the comments.

AM - I don't get this line. "The Arabs, both as nation states and as terror cells are notoriously unstable and thus a huge threat"

The Arabs are unstable and a huge threat? Don't you think that's a little broad? I presume you are not talking about every Arab on the planet, so if you're talking states ... lots of Arab states aren't particularly unstable. And if what you are talking about is Muslim-dominated states and levels of political violence, actually they aren't any more violent than any other group of states. Are there many democracries in that group? No. Does that lead to rebellions? Yes. But as a group they aren't more violent than other states - though of course there are some well known exceptions.

Morris - For you, 3 quick points and 1 broader one. 1) Self-interest equals jealousy? I just call self-interest self-interest. Is there something unexpected in a country setting its policy on the basis of self-interest? 2) There is no proof whatsoever of a substantial tie between Iraq and al Qaeda. If anything has been investigated to death it's that - thousands upon thousands upon thousands of hours of intelligence gathering. al Qaeda had much closer ties with friends of ours in Pakistan and Saudi. Even President Bush himself has acknowledged this (well, not the Pakistan and Saudi part), though the Vice President continues to make this assertion on the basis of no evidence whatsoever (and if there was any evidence you know we'd all know about it). 3) The Kurds were doing just fine for themselves under our protection before March 2003. 4) Just how many closed systems do you want us to force open? How many people (Americans and others) do you want to kill to do that? How much money (that could otherwise be spent on defense, or better highways, or education, or medical research - protecting, bettering and saving US lives) do you want to spend? What if the people we liberate don't want to adopt our ideals? And do you really want to set a norm in the international system that allows states to invade others? That is the slipperiest of slopes. Though I think China and Pakistan might be pleased. I'm not saying we shouldn't ever do what you propose, but it doesn't seem feasible as a central leg of our foreign policy. It seems to me that more often engagement will be a much more efficient way of achieving our goals - fostering economic reform, rewarding practices that allow for pluralism, that kind of thing.

AM & Morris - Quite apart from the practicality problems involved with the idea of Kerry distributing a 150-page action plan on Iraq (Iraq in January may look much, much different; the types of agreements that may be necessitated to get foreign assistance may well agreements that one or more parties want to keep quiet; the negotiating leverage a candidate Kerry has is quite weak without his victory assured), there's another problem with what ya'll want. If Kerry were to give such a thing, a host of people (not necessarily you, but there would definitely be a loud chorus) would condemn Senator Kerry for acting against the president's/America's policies while our troops are fighting in the field. These voices would (with some reason) assert that Kerry's actions were undermining those of the current president.

If you feel like responding, feel free - though this comment line is already extremely long.

Great, you're being just as thorough as I was. Perhaps I didn't phrase that point well...my intent is that the purple heart medal has a specific context, when someone says they got a purple heart I don't think about people hurting themselves as they blow up enemy resources while the enemy isn't around. This may be just my own impression of what the medal should mean rather than its defined significance. I still am not sure about accepting anything on the records of the candidates without looking more deeply into it; I've read too many newspaper stories about pedophiles being hired by schools that didn't do background checks. While I don't think that's the specific threat in this case, this is too important a position not to ensure a better standard of reality testing when so much is at stake. It's interesting you want to trust the military when it comes to Kerry's medals, yet I'd think you demand a higher standard when it comes to responsibility for Abu Gharib or pre-war Rumsfeld support for the invasion.

I'm not arguing we should make the decision for the Iraqi people, but we can give them an environment that has more alternatives, with more available reinforcement for what I would consider appropriate political behavior, that is acting nonviolently within a political context that allows such participation in a meaningful way. Yes, it is scary that they could elect Al Sadr their president in their election, but the growing discontent in Palestine with Arafat gives me hope the Iraqis too might make a better decision. As to whether they choose to continue to torture and kill women and minorities, I'm not sure about this. As a human being I value other human beings, and I would disagree with you; I think we wouldn't permit this within our own society. I don't see how it's in keeping with our ideology to allow the suppression of human rights in the name of multiculturalism. Just because someone's an Iraqi woman instead of an American woman doesn't mean I value her any less. I'm not necessarily against the U.S. military becoming Amnesty International's enforcement wing when its politically feasible.

I think Bush's foreign policy vision is guided by finding the strength in himself to be what nearly everyone in this nation wanted him to be after 9/11, their protector. I think he wants to change the old systems that are threats to us, to go to Afganistan and Iraq...to Iran and N. Korea. People call him a cowboy, and I think he sees himself going from town to town (nation to nation), bringing peace and justice. People criticize the U.S. for acting like a modern day Roman empire. I wonder if they remember their history, the dark ages and superstitions that were left when Rome fell. Of course, we do have to keep from bankrupting our nation as we pursue our foreign adventures as Rome did. I think deep down Bush is motivated by a compassion, a feeling of kinship with all humanity, and this leads him to fight to protect not just Americans and Iraqis, but all human beings.

I think when Bush said he doesn't do nuance, he means he's a straightshooter, genuine, that there's going to be no need to specifically define the meaning of is. It's interesting to talk about the Bush administration as brutally dismissive; I'm trying to picture someone asking Clinton to support a Constitutional ammendment banning abortion, and I wonder how receptive he'd have been. All this means is they dismiss the point of view proselytized by the journalist. Should they be criticized for making decisions without convening a committee each time? Personally, I think it's okay to make decisions based on what Carl Rogers would call the organismic sense. I think something W. and Clinton have in common is their human appeal, they don't try to be something besides the human beings they are, and I think many American citizens connect with them on that level.

I don't remember Clinton convening a lot of town hall meetings to discuss ideas openly, as you're suggesting Bush should. Personally, I like the idea, but neither candidate is taking open questions in an open forum from anyone besides the media at press conferences, though both candidates try desperately to look like they are. To leave themselves open like that is self destructive politically; remember McCain's straight talk express, and the Vietnamese? Remember Howard Dean and the conspiracty behind 9/11? I remember the arrogance of the young turks Clinton brought in to replace the former Bush's "old men", they weren't very good at listening to the other side's arguments without contempt. I think you have a valid point here about the political process, where liberals are traitors and conservatives are baby killers.

You're making my point with the France comment; if they're going to do what's in their best interest, shouldn't we do what's in our best interest, regardless of whether or not they like it? By the time we made it in their best interest to help us, I think it would no longer be in our best interest.

Here's a summary of Iraq/Al Queada by Stephen Hayes: http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.asp?ref=/interrogatory/hayes200406020847.asp

As to why Iraq first, as I've said above, even Hans Bliks thought they were developing WMDs; and N. Korea didn't kick out their inspectors until after we were positioning our forces for war in Iraq. It seems like you can't swing a dead cat toward a world map without hitting some fundamentalist regime or crazy tyrant, but doesn't that make the point that we should start somewhere? I don't think Iraq is meant to be the end of the line here; it's a weak link, a chink in the armor, a foothold to reach other Islamic nations both idealogically and in other ways if necessary to protect our nation's people.

Mo - If you want to talk Iraq, fine, but let's do it in another thread. I don't want to keep this one going since 1) I don't care about the Swift Boat issue and 2) even if I did, from what I've read on this there doesn't seem to be much to these claims (not that can be substantiated at least).

As to the Hayes story, there is no real story there. It was based on cherry-picked data (basically any thing anyone said, reliable or not, about the possibility) in a memo to Senators Roberts and Rockefeller - a memo from Feith that was desperately trying to put the best face on the administration's reasoning, even if that meant including less than reliable data. This data had already been gone over by the CIA and DIA and been found to be unreliable. The Pentagon's response to Hayes is here:
http://www.dod.mil/releases/2003/nr20031115-0642.html - to me the key quote being - "The classified annex was not an analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, and it drew no conclusions."

And like I said before, if there was any proof of such a link, we'd know. It would be in the vital interest of the president to distribute that kind of information, but he hasn't. Instead he's had to criticize his own Vice President for overstating the case.

And you really didn't tackle my 4th point. Do we want EVERYBODY to be waging preventive wars? And since as you say you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a tyrant, is this really the best strategy to accomplish our ends? We need to do things in lots of places at once. Is it best to have our entire military continually tied down, one country at a time, in this atmosphere? That's what this strategy demands.

And I still don't think you've made your case for why Iraq. So some people thought it had chemical weapons. Who doesn't? Few people thought it was anywhere near having an operational nuclear force. Yet we've stood by in the face of North Korea building multiple atomic bombs and Pakistan selling nuclear technology to most every bad regime on the planet. And if you just want to fight dictators, why not Sudan or Zimbabwe?

But if you want to talk about Iraq, please do it in a more recent thread on that topic. Let's let this thread on the Swifties end.

"I think deep down Bush is motivated by a compassion, a feeling of kinship with all humanity, and this leads him to fight to protect not just Americans and Iraqis, but all human beings."

so . . . he's fighting to protect americans by attacking a country that posed them no threat, fighting to protect iraqis principally from themselves (by killing quite a few of them), and the fact that he has basically no allies (yes, there are countries with leadership that has signed on to the "coalition of the willing" but none of them shows a popular majority in favor of doing so) surely reflects international favor for his egalitarian impulse to protect all human beings . . . ?

seriously?

wow, i've been looking at this all wrong.

Angry Macaque

Sorry it took me a couple of days to get back to you.

You make several points. First you argue that Kerry’s plan is deliberately vague, and hence not worthy of discussion:

I also appreciate your candor when you concede that Sen. Kerry's plans are less than specific. This is at the core of the problem with modern American politics. Both sides (Rep. and Dem.) debate only in terms of sound bites, and a political critic or concerned citizen can only look to the foundation of these soundbites to glean any menaing from them. President Bush received excoriating criticism for his assertions re: WMD's because the foundation was found to be somewhat lacking, yet Kerry asks for the voters to ignore the underpinnings of his one-liner assertions. His "plans" for Iraq are simply too nebulous to warrant any response in a debate, since as I indicated before, his plans are goals with no stated means to achieve them.

I think armand has done a fine job of summing up my feelings on this matter. He cannot give precise “I’ll go to Germany and get them to give us 25,000 troops in return for their control over rebuilding the school system” type of plans because: 1) He doesn’t have the authority to negotiate at this level of detail. 2) He doesn’t have the authority to make deals for the United States at any level of detail. 3) The situation in Iraq will change between now and late January, when Kerry would be sworn if (if he wins). 4) Kerry would (rightly) be condemned by just about everyone for illegally usurping the authority to negotiate with foreign governments – and would lose more votes through this action than he would gain by being specific. 5) Kerry would make the situation in Iraq worse because if he negotiated because the world wouldn’t know which person (Bush or Kerry) to talk to, creating greater confusion.

I’ll grant that his plans are vague. However vague they are, can’t we at least acknowledge that they move in a direction different that what Bush is doing, and use that as a starting point for a debate? Isn’t that reasonable?

You then go on to argue:

PResident Bush is not exactly eloquent re: his own plans, but at least we can look at his course of conduct since his election and judge it. What no one on the left seems willing to concede is that based on that record, President Bush is doing amazingly well in the face of an unprecedented global dilemma-how does war work when there are no clearly defined sides? Kerry ignores that central issue by responding with platitudes.

In a word, NO. While clearly we can disagree about this, I do not believe that President Bush is doing well in this war. In Afghanistan the Taliban is resurgent, the US supported government lacks political control over anything but Kabul, there are underground mutterings that the scheduled elections may be postponed, that the elections (if they are held) will not be democratic, and Al Quaeda is still operating in the hills (and, of course, we haven’t caught Osama Bin Laden). In Iraq, we succeeded in toppling Saddam Hussein, but in his place we have a US backed regime that fails to control anything but a few parts of some major cities, a large insurgency (whether it is growing or shrinking is up for debate), and already questions about what kind of democracy (if any) will be established there when elections are held in less than six months. In terms of global terror, while there have been no further attacks on American soil (though we don’t know if any have been tried, so we do not know how effective our preventative measures have been), there have been significant Al Quaeda attacks in Indonesia, Spain, Russia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. This is not, I do not think, real success.

You argue that there are no clearly defined sides. I would argue that the reason there are no clearly defined sides is that the US has gone out of its way to alienate a number of historically important US allies, and hence we (the US) are not presenting a united front against radical Islam. One of the strongest weapons in our arsenal in defeating the Soviet Union was that the US made strong alliances (and not always in our interests) that allowed those opposed to Communism to grow economically and politically until the Soviet Union fell apart trying to match us. One of the ways to defeat radical Islam, it seems to me, would be the same – build a large (hopefully unanimous) coalition of states to isolate those that follow radical Islam, and leave it alone until it collapses under its own false assumptions. Bush has, instead, pushed away some of our strongest allies (Germany, Spain, France). This makes us weaker, not stronger, in this fight.

You argue:

Other nations respect consistency over time. The Arabs, both as nation states and as terror cells are notoriously unstable and thus a huge threat, while France has conducted nuclear weapons tests to the chagrin and condemnation of her allies without apology. We continue to deal with France because we can at least understand the logic of securing national security and self-interest as a global power.

There are many things wrong here. First, consistency is rare in international relations. Self-interest forces every state to treat every other state uniquely. States need different things from other states: some relations are more important than others, and states overlook flaws in allies that they don’t in enemies. Why are we allied with Pakistan or Saudi Arabia? Both states are clearly more dangerous to us in terms of global terrorism than is Syria or Iraq, yet both are treated as allies because of the value we get from them (oil, political help, military bases, etc.). The US does not have a consistent foreign policy, and never has.

Nor are the Arab states unstable. When was the last revolution in that part of the world? Our “ally”, Pakistan, had a military coup (removed the democratically elected government, by the way) back in the mid-1990s, but before then it might have been the Iranian revolution in 1979. The Middle East is remarkably stable, actually. So why are they a threat? I would argue that the threat is an ideology, fundamentalist Islam, not a particular state.

As for France, what’s the “nuclear weapons” bit? I don’t think France has actually tested them for almost a decade, and in any event the US rejected the latest treaty that prevents all nuclear tests. Republicans, who are leading this movement, argue we need to do this in order to improve our nuclear weapons for future threats. Needless to say, our allies have condemned us for this, and we are (as usual) ignoring them. We continue to “deal” with France because they are an important, powerful state in the world. That seems self-evident.

Finally, you note:

The problem with the U.S. is that there is no consistency because of the ease with which opposition parties (usually the democrats) can critique and undermine the position of the leadership. I'm not suggesting a restriction on their right to do so, but merely pointing out that if U.S. policy is inconveniencing you as a European country waiting to exploit Iraq, simply wait for the Dems to get in office. Kerry's vagueness encourages this perception, since he will need to supplicate himself before NATO to make his plan work.

There seems to be two different threads here: one about the flaws in the US system (we have no consistency because out-of-power parties can prevent policies) and the other about the motives of the European states not engaged in Iraq (that they are seeking just to exploit the economic opportunities in that country). As to the first, two answers: 1) This is precisely how the system is designed to work. The government is supposed to move slowly, and only through almost unanimous agreement, on important changes. That’s why it takes so much to amend the Constitution, and why signing a treaty is harder than passing a law. 2) The Republicans have had control over both houses of Congress, the executive, and arguably most of the Federal court system for the last two years. They have consistently ignored Democrats and moderate Republicans (go read about Senator Jeffords, I-VT, formerly R-VT, for a refresher) over that time. The have been able to implement just about whatever policies they have wanted. I do not agree that the minority part has had any ability to undermine the core of Republican policy, either domestic or foreign, over the last two years.

As for the European states only wanted to exploit Iraq, I think you again misread their attitude. Remember, most of the international terrorism that has occurred since 9/11 has been directed at them, not at us. They have a huge security problem, and they know it. What they disagree with, however, is what the US is doing. They do not, in general, feel that invading Iraq helped with the global terrorism problem. They do recognize that, now that it has occurred, we (the world) must “solve” Iraq or create a greater threat to global peace (worse case: a Taliban in Iraq that has lots of oil, or something like that). They are not waiting to exploit Iraq, but to a leadership change in the US that will allow joint efforts to reduce the problem.

Hope this helps.

Baltar, Joshua, and Armand.
Refer to "A better debate" for continuation of our Iraq discussion.