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RedditYglesias (via his cronies at CAP) reports that Melody Barnes will run Obama's Domestic Policy Council.
That's good news. I think she counts as a "dyed-in-the-wool progressive."
On a related note, there's been a fair amount of back and forth about my complaint the other day w/r/t the lack of movement lefties in the nascent Obama administration.
But I want to reiterate, that while I'm really not pleased with a lot of the picks -- Larry Summers, for instance -- I think it's also easy to over-interpret the degree to which the ideological disposition of the personnel being named will be determinative. "Personnel is policy" is an old movement conservative saw. And it's doubly true for 'wingers that don't actually believe in constructive governmental policy engagement. But with a Democratic administration actually committed to good governance, it's a bit more complicated.
And, as the mutual fund ads say, past performance is no guarantee of future returns. Just consider that when Dubya appointed his cabinet it was dominated by old GOP hands, with a strong over-representation of the Ford administration. None of us thought: uh-oh! Those Fordies are totally going to launch an insane campaign of imperial conquest and messianic violence. But that's what happened. So who knows?
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EXACTLY, Mr Hayes.
Dick Cheney got his start under the President who pushed DETENTE with the Soviets.
Does that sound like the "Darth" we've come to know and loathe these past 8 years????
Posted by Mask at 11/24/2008 @ 10:33am
We all know Bush and Cheney have always been looking out for big business buddies and they have had a high old time for the past 8 years!!! Their time has come to move on and out...I hope Obama can investigate that administration and make them accountable and serve time if necessary....that would make me feel better somewhat at least.
Posted by Caj at 11/24/2008 @ 10:43am
Posted by Caj at 11/24/2008 @ 10:43am
Don't count on it. Obama wants to make his own mark, and he can't do that if he is stuck trying to hold others accountable for the past. I'm not saying it is right. I'm saying it is the reality.
Posted by srjenkins at 11/24/2008 @ 11:34am
"None of us thought: uh-oh! Those Fordies are totally going to launch an insane campaign of imperial conquest and messianic violence. But that's what happened. So who knows?"
Speak for yourself, Christopher...
This admin had no qualms about destroying careers at the drop of a hat... for even suggesting there might be alternatives... so we would be foolish to judge the characters of people who felt they had to 'cave and buckle' in order to protect their families and their livelihoods... under such an authoritarian regime.
Posted by ttr at 11/24/2008 @ 12:57pm
'None of us thought: uh-oh! Those Fordies are totally going to launch an insane campaign of imperial conquest and messianic violence. But that's what happened. So who knows?'
How do you define "us"? You have got to be joking?
Posted by OneVote at 11/24/2008 @ 2:34pm
Posted by OneVote at 11/24/2008 @ 2:34pm
WHO exactly was predicting that "Bush and Cheney would invade Iraq and try to set-up a new government in Baghdad" in December 2000?!?!??!?
Bush ran on "no nation-building" (in opposition to Clinton's policies in Bosnia)....and Cheney was the SecDefense who agreed with Bush-41 not to "go on to Baghdad" during the Gulf War.
Posted by Mask at 11/24/2008 @ 4:27pm
Posted by Mask at 11/24/2008 @ 4:27pm
Perhaps you need to take another look at the following timeline. At best, he was sending mixed signals.
http://downingstreetmemo.com/timeline/
Posted by srjenkins at 11/24/2008 @ 4:32pm
Posted by OneVote at 11/24/2008 @ 2:34pm
Posted by Mask at 11/24/2008 @ 4:27pm | ignore this person | warn this person
These guys weren't on board as hardliners (hawks) early on with strategic control doctrines relating to the Middle East? Clinton's administration may have advocated "soft persuasion" such as sanctions and limited military engagement, but the Vulcans I think it safe to say were of a different mind.
'The Vulcans is a nickname used to refer to Republican Presidential candidate George W. Bush's foreign policy advisory team assembled to brief him prior to the 2000 U.S. presidential election. The Vulcans were led by Condoleezza Rice and included Richard Armitage, Robert Blackwill, Stephen Hadley, Richard Perle, Dov S. Zakheim, Robert Zoellick and Paul Wolfowitz. Other key campaign figures including Dick Cheney, George P. Shultz and Colin Powell were also closely associated with the group but were never actually members. During the campaign, Bush sought to deflect questions about his own lack of foreign policy experience by pointing to this group of experienced advisers. After the election, all the members of the team received key positions within the new Bush administration' - Wikipedia
Just cause it ain't in MSM, doesn't mean that it wasn't foreseeable.
Posted by OneVote at 11/24/2008 @ 4:59pm
'Contrary to original U.S. promises to its Arab allies, the 1991 Gulf War left behind large military bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and basing rights in the other Gulf states of Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. The war also heightened the profile of existing U.S. air bases in Turkey. The war completed the American inheritance of the oil region from which the British had withdrawn in the early 1970s. Yet the U.S. itself only imports about 5 percent of its oil from the Gulf; the rest is exported mainly to Europe and Japan. French President Jacques Chirac correctly viewed the U.S. role in the Persian Gulf as securing control over oil sources for the European and East Asian economic powers. The U.S. decided to permanently station bases around the Gulf after 1991 not only to counter Saddam Hussein, and to support the continued bombing against Iraq, but to quell potential internal dissent in the oil-rich monarchies.'
New US Military Bases: Side Effects or Causes of War? By Zoltan Grossman 02/02/2002 Counterpunch...
One of the proferred reasons for 9/11? US military presence in Saudi Arabia. We needed to find a huge military base outside of Saudi Arabia to protect Israel and world oil. But where? Iraq looked mighty vulnerable and very enticing.
Come on ---- get real.
Posted by OneVote at 11/24/2008 @ 5:23pm
Perhaps you need to take another look at the following timeline. At best, he was sending mixed signals.
http://downingstreetmemo.com/timeline/
Posted by srjenkins at 11/24/2008 @ 4:32pm | warn this person
Good link SRJ.
Posted by OneVote at 11/24/2008 @ 5:35pm
No, OV and SJ, you missed my point.
Who was predicting those guys were planning on overthrowing Iraq, installing a new government, and talking up "democracy blooming like a thousand flowers"?
which is what was claimed by TTR.
Seems I remember pre-9/11 and the attacks from the Left on Bush was that he WASN'T going to be an interventionist President and that "things like Kosovo or Rwanda" would increase given his isolationism.
I wish they had been right...but they didn't "predict" that he would go all neo-conny and start trying to "bring democracy to the Middle East".
Posted by Mask at 11/25/2008 @ 07:36am
Posted by Mask at 11/25/2008 @ 07:36am | ignore this person | warn this person
Gosh Mask...this stuff goes way back....Carter Doctrine - Reagan Corollary and neoconservative expansions. As I recall, Bush senior took a lot of flack for not taking out Saddam in the Gulf War. And what of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998?
Also interesting to note:
'In 1997, along with Donald Rumsfeld, William Kristol and others, Cheney founded the "Project for the New American Century," a neoconservative U.S. think tank whose self-stated goal is to "promote American global leadership."[51] He was also part of the board of advisors of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) before becoming vice president.[36]'
Source: Wikipedia
Maybe this a semantic or interpretative question? Does "who would have thought" imply that Bush's actions were beyond the realm of possible inference, or does it mean that the general public was caught off guard? I know the Iraq War was peddled as "humanitarian intervention," but I don't remember an outcry from the left recommending military intervention there. In fact, wasn't there some outcry against sanctions on Iraq having "unintended" consequences (such as death of Iraqi children)? Another justification for 9/11 btw.
The article does seem to acknowledge the premise that a President's cabinet does influence policy decisions. Understanding that cabinet is subject to varying interpretation, and varying possibility, and of course, awareness level.
Posted by OneVote at 11/25/2008 @ 11:44am
Posted by OneVote at 11/25/2008 @ 11:44am
Again, OV...missing the point.
Where were all these 20/20 hindsight prognosticators that were telling us pre-9/11 that Bush, Cheney, et al were going to try to overthrow Saddam with an invasion and set-up a "democracy" in Iraq????
I have a memory that goes back farther than 7 years...and the main attack from the Left that I remember on Dubya was he was a "bumblemouthed silver spooner who liked executions" and that his "no nation building" was short-sighted and isolationist.
I don't recall ANYBODY predicting an "Iraq occupation" scenario, given his father and Cheney had both foresworn such a move in 1991.
Posted by Mask at 11/25/2008 @ 11:58am
Posted by Mask at 11/25/2008 @ 07:36am
I cannot speak for "The Left" who is in favor of U.S. military intervention. I'm certainly not among them.
Posted by srjenkins at 11/25/2008 @ 12:06pm
Posted by srjenkins at 11/25/2008 @ 12:06pm
Rwanda?
Darfur?
Posted by Mask at 11/25/2008 @ 12:11pm
by Mask at 11/25/2008 @ 07:36am...
"Who was predicting those guys were planning on overthrowing Iraq, installing a new government, and talking up "democracy blooming like a thousand flowers"?
...which is what was claimed by TTR."
I can always count on you to provoke me into greater clarity, Mask...;^)
Actually... what I was vaguely indicating was that GWB's flock of chickenhawks were entrenched enough to be dangerous... and that in 2000, it was obvious to many that George was not 'with it' enough to keep tabs on their actions.
Many speculated at the time that he was chosen for these qualities... and was in fact out of touch 'on purpose'.
My point was, simply... that Bush supporters of 2000... and especially his supporters in 2004... are strangely distancing themselves from our current crises... saying "who could have foreseen..."
I, for one... was viscerally repulsed...;^)
PNAC came to light later on.
Posted by ttr at 11/25/2008 @ 12:41pm
Posted by Mask at 11/25/2008 @ 11:58am | ignore this person | warn this person
Did you check out the link that SRJ suggested? Was this just saber rattling?
The issue here is Junior Bush, not policy positions in 1991 relating to the Gulf War which was in fact more coalition based, supported with coalition funds, and launched because of Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. As a hypothetical, do you think it plausible that Cheney would have gone against the President in 1991, despite his personal opinion?
The fact that MSM didn't publish a major preelection or preinaugural article predicting the Iraq War is not dispositive as to its foreseeability and likelihood. Do you recall the NY Times handling of the NSA story?
Posted by OneVote at 11/25/2008 @ 1:00pm
Posted by Mask at 11/25/2008 @ 11:58am | ignore this person | warn this person
'INC was set up following the Persian Gulf War to coordinate the activities of various anti-Saddam groups. Then President George Bush signed a presidential finding directing the Central Intelligence Agency to create conditions for Hussein's removal in May 1991. Coordinating anti-Saddam groups was an important element of this strategy. The name INC was reportedly coined by public relations expert John Rendon (of the Rendon Group agency) and the group was funded by the United States. The group received millions in covert funding in the 1990s, and then about $8 million a year in overt funding after the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998. The deep involvement of the American CIA in the creation and early funding of the INC in its early years led many to consider the group a "creation of the CIA" rather than an organ of genuine Iraqi opposition.'
Source: Wikipedia
Now isn't it perhaps reasonable to assume that if our CIA inspired adventures are not working as planned, that the preemptive military option might be the next step?
Posted by OneVote at 11/25/2008 @ 1:04pm
Actually... what I was vaguely indicating was that GWB's flock of chickenhawks were entrenched enough to be dangerous... and that in 2000, it was obvious to many that George was not 'with it' enough to keep tabs on their actions.
Many speculated at the time that he was chosen for these qualities... and was in fact out of touch 'on purpose'.
Posted by ttr at 11/25/2008 @ 12:41pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Indeed. A malleable figurehead.
Posted by OneVote at 11/25/2008 @ 1:12pm
Posted by OneVote at 11/25/2008 @ 1:00pm
OV, I don't care about the MSM even. Show me "The Nation" articles warning that Dubya would attempt an invasion of Iraq and "democracy building" in the ME.
ttr claimed that Mr Hayes was "speaking for himself" when he said few anticipated a bunch of "old Fordies" pulling what they did in 2002-2003.
Okay, fine. Show me "all" the posts from liberals like ttr (not even him himself) saying that that was somehow predicted anytime from the 2000 Iowa Caucus to September 10, 2001????
Posted by OneVote at 11/25/2008 @ 1:04pm
Overthrowing Saddam with a single Marine Recon sniper bullet and replacing him with one of his Baathist thugligs who would be more malleable....is NOT what I would call a "PNAC-inspired plan for creating democracies and transforming the ME".
Again, where are the "ttr" Criswell Predicts from 2000?
Posted by Mask at 11/25/2008 @ 1:42pm
Perhaps nowhere has the inheritance of Republican governance been squandered so fatefully as with respect to Iraq. The anti-Iraq coalition assembled to oppose Saddam Hussein has disintegrated. The administration has pretended to support the removal of Saddam Hussein from power, but did nothing when Saddam Hussein's army smashed the democratic opposition in northern Iraq in August 1996. The administration also surrendered the diplomatic initiative to Iraq and Iraq's friends, and failed to champion the international inspectors charged with erasing Iraq's nuclear, biological, chemical, and ballistic missile programs. When, in late 1998, the administration decided to take military action, it did too little, too late. Because of the administration's failures there is no coalition, no peace, and no effective inspection regime to prevent Saddam's development of weapons of mass destruction.
Posted by OneVote at 11/25/2008 @ 2:14pm
continued...........
A new Republican administration will patiently rebuild an international coalition opposed to Saddam Hussein and committed to joint action. We will insist that Iraq comply fully with its disarmament commitments. We will maintain the sanctions on the Iraqi regime while seeking to alleviate the suffering of innocent Iraqi people. We will react forcefully and unequivocally to any evidence of reconstituted Iraqi capabilities for producing weapons of mass destruction. In 1998, Congress passed and the president signed the Iraq Liberation Act, the clear purpose of which is to assist the opposition to Saddam Hussein. The administration has used an arsenal of dilatory tactics to block any serious support to the Iraqi National Congress, an umbrella organization reflecting a broad and representative group of Iraqis who wish to free their country from the scourge of Saddam Hussein's regime. We support the full implementation of the Iraq Liberation Act, which should be regarded as a starting point in a comprehensive plan for the removal of Saddam Hussein and the restoration of international inspections in collaboration with his successor. Republicans recognize that peace and stability in the Persian Gulf is impossible as long as Saddam Hussein rules Iraq.
Republican Convention 2000 CNN Politics -Excerpt
Posted by OneVote at 11/25/2008 @ 2:17pm
Overthrowing Saddam with a single Marine Recon sniper bullet and replacing him with one of his Baathist thugligs who would be more malleable....is NOT what I would call a "PNAC-inspired plan for creating democracies and transforming the ME".
Again, where are the "ttr" Criswell Predicts from 2000?
Posted by Mask at 11/25/2008 @ 1:42pm | ignore this person | warn this person
INC entailed a little more than just taking Saddam out.
'Initially, Chalabi enjoyed close political and business relationships with some members of the U.S. government, including some prominent neoconservatives within the Pentagon. Chalabi is said to have had political contacts within the Project for the New American Century, most notably with Paul Wolfowitz, a student of nuclear strategist Albert Wohlstetter, and Richard Perle who was introduced to Chalabi by Wohlstetter in 1985. He also enjoyed considerable support among politicians and political pundits in the United States, most notably Jim Hoagland of The Washington Post, who held him up as a notable force for democracy in Iraq[5]. He was a special guest of First Lady Laura Bush at the 2004 State of the Union Address.[6].'
Source: Wikipedia
Can't speak for ttr.....and I wasn't a reader that far back. Is this just about "us" meaning The Nation? I interpret "us" as more encompassing. I can't argue your narrowed focus because I just don't know. You may right.
Posted by OneVote at 11/25/2008 @ 2:27pm
Posted by OneVote at 11/25/2008 @ 2:27pm
I just object to this 20/20 hindsight of "I knew Bush wanted to invade Iraq back during the SC GOP Primary of 2000!"....when nothing like that was even CLOSE to be predicted by ANYBODY.
EVERYBODY wanted to see Saddam overthrown...those who opposed sanctions surely would have liked to have seen it as a great way to getting the UN to drop them.
But ttr was trying to make the case that Mr Hayes and those who saw Cheney and Rummy as "Fordians" were "blind to their ultimate goals of Iraqi invasion"....
and that's simply not true.
Posted by Mask at 11/25/2008 @ 2:43pm
'The INC often worked with the media, most notably with Judith Miller, concerning her WMD stories for the New York Times[8] starting on February 26, 1998. After the war, given the lack of discovery of WMDs, most of the WMD claims of the INC were shown to have been either misleading, exaggerated, or completely made up while INC information about the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein's loyalists and Chalabi's personal enemies were accurate. Another of Chalabi's advocates was American Enterprise Institute's Iraq specialist Danielle Pletka. Chalabi received advice on media and television presentation techniques from the Irish scriptwriter and commentator Eoghan Harris prior to the invasion of Iraq.[9]'
Source: Wikipedia
Well....NY Times had to apologize about Miller - after the fact - 2005.
I think it fair to say that the case for a likely military intervention was brewing for some time, and came to fruition with the election of Bush. It may have taken some reading between the lines....but it was there.
Posted by OneVote at 11/25/2008 @ 2:45pm
Posted by Mask at 11/25/2008 @ 2:43pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Ahhhh.....point well taken. If he did have such a definitive plan, it wasn't in the public purview at that time. Possibility is far different from certainty.
Posted by OneVote at 11/25/2008 @ 2:49pm
Posted by Mask at 11/25/2008 @ 12:11pm
There is a difference between international peacekeeping and war. The U.S. military - particularly the Army -specializes in the latter.
There is also a difference between promoting human rights and pursuing a national agenda. The U.S. government, with its well documented support of dictators and providing training for some of the worst human rights abusers in recent history, will not subvert it's national agenda to an agenda of promoting human rights.
So looking to the U.S. government or the U.S. military to solve problems of genocide and other violations of human rights is turning to something that is destined to fail - and perpetuate the very problems it purports to solve.
I don't support U.S. military intervention anywhere in the world. I think the longer the world relies on the military might of nations like the U.S. - and hope they act more like a cop than a bully - means the longer it will take to develop a true multi-national peacekeeping force that could put a stop to the worst human rights abuses - like Rwanda and Darfur.
Posted by srjenkins at 11/25/2008 @ 3:09pm
Why the heck are we still arguing about Iraq etc. In the face of the financial mess and the incoming administration, the rubber is really hitting the road . Iraq is pretty mush over as a pressing issure. Can we not move on to the present? FOCUS! The "team" that Obama is puting together is one that has a lot of Washington insider history. It seems that the only thing missing now to round out this cabal is Hillary in State. We will have the Clintons in charge, internationally (remember, Hillary voted FOR that war), Pelosi and Reed in charge of the house with Lieberman still in place and those old cronies, Barney Frank et all in charge of the money. This leaves only the White House in Obama's hands. What is he thinking?
Posted by Kateliz at 11/25/2008 @ 3:37pm
Posted by Kateliz at 11/25/2008 @ 3:37pm
If you are having trouble making the connection between Iraq (which by the way, still costs us billions daily) and the current financial crisis, perhaps you are suffering from too much focus.
Posted by srjenkins at 11/25/2008 @ 3:40pm
Posted by OneVote at 11/25/2008 @ 2:49pm
OV, even if it was a "secret plan"....
Mr Hayes was right. NOBODY predicted Cheney etc. were for "taking over Iraq"...again, especially after being against "going on to Baghdad" in 1991.
Posted by srjenkins at 11/25/2008 @ 3:09pm
SJ, of COURSE there's a difference between "peacekeeping and war"...
but you said you didn't favor "military intervention"...so what's the diffference between "military intevention" and "peacekeeping"?
Posted by Mask at 11/25/2008 @ 4:11pm
Posted by Mask at 11/25/2008 @ 4:11pm | ignore this person | warn this person
'None of us thought: uh-oh! Those Fordies are totally going to launch an insane campaign of imperial conquest and messianic violence. But that's what happened. So who knows?' *************************************** "totally" supports your premise. The pushback here I think is that "totally" is somewhat ambiguous in context, and perhaps this was just not a carefully crafted sentence. If Hayes meant to say that we could be "totally" (lol...) safe in assuming that these former Fordies would not be up to mischief in Iraq, including a straitjacketed military engagement, then I think Hayes is out in left field somewhere. The preelection facts just don't support that comfort level. The idea that Cheney and Rumsfield didn't evolve politically from 1974 (Ford took office), a period of 25 years, is preposterous and perhaps another poor analogy by Mr. Hayes. I am sure Hayes appreciates your interposition of the Gulf War, but I don't recall him making that argument himself.
So, what can infer about the political evolution of the Clintonista's after being deposed? It looks like they haven't abandoned the system but embraced it. If we logically carry out Haye's analogy, is it not possible that the Clintonista's have experienced the same dismal downward spiral of corruption and attendance to special interest groups that Cheney and Rumsfield have? And as a Clinton devotee, shouldn't you be in agreement with his caveat that past performance is not a gurarantee of future performance.
Posted by OneVote at 11/25/2008 @ 5:02pm
Posted by Mask at 11/25/2008 @ 4:11pm
To be exact, I said, "I cannot speak for 'The Left' who is in favor of U.S. military intervention."
There is a difference between "U.S. military intervention" and "military intervention" - the latter could include peacekeeping operations which are not part of the mission of the U.S. military.
I would go further and say that, by definition, a peacekeeping operation would have to transfer operation control of troops to a international peacekeeping organization, such as that provided to the U.N. under its charter.
Without the transfer of operational control, "peacekeeping" would just be another bastardized term for conducting a war wherever a nation sees fit. And even if you were to use structures like the U.N. you still have peacekeeping policies being set by the Security Council, which is better than superpower nations policiing their corners of the world - but not by much.
Bottom line: There are no good peacekeeping mechanisms in the world, and it is by design. Every time someone makes the argument that the U.S. needs to go into Darfur, Rwanda or wherever, they are enabling people like LVL that want to pretend the U.S. went into Iraq because Saddam was a "madman", while they ignore the relevant differences between why Iraq was chosen over someplace else.
North Korea not mad enough? Or is it the nukes, million strong army and lack of resources? You could make similar comments about practically any horror in Africa over the last few decades.
I'm not about to make that mistake.
Posted by srjenkins at 11/25/2008 @ 5:25pm
Posted by lvliberty1 at 11/25/2008 @ 5:24pm
If you wanted to do a comparison, it would be better if you do an apples to apples comparison.
Care to run the numbers on military related expense against health related expense since 1965 - the year Medicare passed. And no, veteran's health benefits are a military expense.
Every year both Social Security and the military are a greater expense than Medicare. The difference of course is that Social Security and Medicare give us something of value - namely, a measure of security for our oldest citizens - and the military doesn't.
If we extrapolate out 75 years using trends and straight from the buttocks calculations, I imagine we could come up with a number for military expense even more scary than a mere $54 trillion.
That said, I agree with you on the bailouts. If a company needs a bailout, they should either fail or be nationalized. Giving money away is simply stupid.
I also think that these problems are symptomatic of the unsustainability of our current economic organization. Cheap oil isn't going to last. Fresh water reserves will soon be gone. Without both, modern agriculture and most modern businesses disappears.
If this isn't a depression, don't worry. One's coming.
Posted by srjenkins at 11/25/2008 @ 5:54pm
Posted by lvliberty1 at 11/25/2008 @ 5:31pm
So important it had to be said twice?
"BTW, as I have noted previously, approx 60% or more of the Iraq war costs are for personnel."
This argument only works if I were stupid enough to forget about a contract workforce that is larger than the military and that would not exist if it wasn't for Iraq.
Or if I were to froget that billions are being spent in re-enlistment bonuses that effectively turn our all volunteer force into something akin to a mercenary army, in addition to the actual mercenaries we hire.
No. I don't think I'm buying it LVL. Try again.
Posted by srjenkins at 11/25/2008 @ 6:00pm
Ok, Mask... bring it on... I know you well enough to see that you are coming after me...
I will begin by fully admitting that I had no Idea that the Bush administration was going to invade Iraq in the way that they did... as former 'Fordies'.
There. You win...
However... that being said...
I resented Christopher's 'speaking for all of us'... insofar as many of us distrusted Cheney's Halliburton connections and impulses... we had watched with disgust as Rove 'worked his magic'... we had watched Bush's 'ascendance' with suspicion... we wondered what kind of Oedipal 'strangeness' would likely emerge...
And... there were more than a few of us... who believed that the orchestrated oversights around GWB's rather poor business sense, his propensity for bailouts, his lack of personal grit and determination and his odd military service incongruities...
...felt strongly that something was brewing.
Then the election happened in 2000... and before the New Year came... it was painfully obvious.
Posted by ttr at 11/25/2008 @ 7:25pm
Posted by lvliberty1 at 11/25/2008 @ 6:19pm
1. the contract workforce and re-enlistment bonuses do not make up a majority of the cost of military personnel.
Obviously. If the contract workforce is the same size or greater, then your claim about ~60% or more of the Iraq war costs are for sunk personnel costs is false.
2. I slipped in the reenlistment comment to get a further dig into your claim that personnel are sunk costs. If you need special forces, medical personnel and the like because you are engaged in a conflict and are paying to keep them on board, then these aren't sunk costs.
I also think this issue raises an interesting philosophical question:
Example: If you are paying a U.S. Navy SEAL a six figure reenlistment bonus to stay on rather than go work for Blackwater, then at what point do we think their financial interests start to dominate their concerns over their national interests, i.e., they become a mercenary?
It can be debated, but I think it is an interesting question regardless of our conclusions.
Also, are we willing to call Blackwater what it is, a mercenary army? Or, do we want to play games with semantics and pretend that because they are U.S. nationals they don't fulfil the Laws of War definition outlined in Protocol 1 of the Geneva Convention?
How, then, is Blackwater different than the U.S. Army? How are they the same? Whatever your position, you'd be well served to consider how to differentiate between U.S. forces and the role of mercenaries in U.S. military conflicts.
I know all of this is hard for you to understand because your view of the world makes it difficult for you to understand concepts that aren't congruent with it. It's a problem everyone has to some extent, but your case seems particularly acute.
Posted by srjenkins at 11/25/2008 @ 7:31pm
January 22, 2001 and After: Neoconservatives Begin Push for Invasion of Iraq An orchestrated push in the media begins to make the case for the need to invade Iraq. The San Diego Union-Tribune reprints a Weekly Standard article by William Kristol and Robert Kagan that tells readers (after comparing President Bush favorably to Ronald Reagan, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Harry Truman, and lauding Bush's "steely determination") that US military action "could well be necessary to bring Saddam down." They write: "At some point, Bush could well find himself confronted by an Iraq armed with weapons of mass destruction. During these past few years, it was relatively easy for congressional Republicans to call for arming and funding the Iraqi opposition. That remains a good idea. But the more sober of Bush's advisers, like Robert Zoellick and Paul Wolfowitz (see February 18, 1992 and Late February, 2001), have recognized that this alone will not do the trick. Some use of American military force, both from the air and on the ground, could well be necessary to bring Saddam down, no matter how wonderfully the Iraqi opposition performs. Whether he chooses it or not, Bush may quickly be faced with the same decision his father had to make in 1990. He has in his cabinet at least one person who counseled inaction the last time [referring to Secretary of State Colin Powell]. If the crisis comes, Bush, like his father, will not be able to rely only on the judgment of the men and women around him: He will have to act from his own instincts and his own courage." [Weekly Standard, 1/22/2001; Unger, 2007, pp. 206] In the coming weeks, an onslaught of print and television op-eds and commentaries, some from Bush administration officials, will advocate the overthrow of Hussein (see Late February, 20
Posted by OneVote at 11/26/2008 @ 08:56am
Source:
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a021601perleoverthrow
Posted by OneVote at 11/26/2008 @ 08:57am
"Paul Wolfowitz. [Source: Boston Globe]A draft of the Defense Department's new post-Cold War strategy, the Defense Planning Guidance (DPG), causes a split among senior department officials and is criticized by the White House. The draft, prepared by the Pentagon's Undersecretary for Policy Paul Wolfowitz, says that the US must become the world's single superpower and must take aggressive action to prevent competing nations--even allies such as Germany and Japan--from challenging US economic and military supremacy. [New York Times, 5/23/1992] The views in the document will become known informally as the "Wolfowitz Doctrine."
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a021601perleoverthrow
"Reflective of Cheney, Wolfowitz's Views -
Senior Pentagon officials say that while the draft has not yet been approved by either Dick Cheney or Wolfowitz, both played substantial roles in its creation and endorse its views. "This is not the piano player in the whorehouse," one official says."
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a021601perleoverthrow
Posted by OneVote at 11/26/2008 @ 09:06am
...felt strongly that something was brewing.
Then the election happened in 2000... and before the New Year came... it was painfully obvious.
Posted by ttr at 11/25/2008 @ 7:25pm | ignore this person | warn this person
You got it ttr.......lots and lots of smoke on the horizon.
Posted by OneVote at 11/26/2008 @ 09:09am
Posted by OneVote at 11/25/2008 @ 5:02pm
Political "evolution" works in any direction, OV. Jimmy Carter is much more liberal now, than he was in his Presidency. Ramsey Clark was a mainstream, even conservative Dem under LBJ (who prosecuted Dr Spock and Wm. Sloane Coffin). Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama.
But the Cheney of Ford's days and the Cheney of the First Gulf War (who didn't want to go into Baghdad AND who cut real growth in the defense budget), were relatively identical. So it's just, again, 20/20 hindsight that allows SOME to claim that they were aware of his intentions on Iraq in 2000.
I think this is just a bit of an ego trip to be able to say "I knew it all the time!"
Posted by Mask at 11/26/2008 @ 09:39am
Posted by srjenkins at 11/25/2008 @ 5:25pm
You've got yourself a bit of a dilemma, then, SRJ.
No way to create a "truly international peacekeeping" force that any of the major players is going to allow to be "independent". Most Americans (and probably most Russians, Chinese, British, Indians, Brazillians, etc.) are not going to allow their troops to be at the behest of some non-accountable international body.
And if that body IS accountable to the various nation-states, then it is simply another verson of UN peacekeepers, since the Big Guys will pull the strings.
Posted by Mask at 11/26/2008 @ 09:44am
Posted by OneVote at 11/25/2008 @ 5:02pm
I think this is just a bit of an ego trip to be able to say "I knew it all the time!"
Posted by Mask at 11/26/2008 @ 09:39am | ignore this person | warn this person
Perhaps it is more of ego trip to say that no one expected it as a possibility?
I think we have already covered the ground on the differences between the Gulf War and the current "go it alone" ideology justifying our current situation. I think that Cheney in the Gulf War was the "President's secretary," and articulating the President's view. (are you forgetting your Rahm Emmanuel don't worry he won't affect the President's policy rationale?). Bush senior knew what the hell was doing and had a far greater knowledge than junior did. Remember junior thought Taliban was a rock group.
Cheney and Wolfowitz go way back. Cheney had to bid his time before he found the malleable figurehead to make his power play. The comparison you make between then and now is a guiding light for those who had their heads stuck in sand during the glorious Clinton years. Cheney was on board with the Wolfowitz Doctrine early on, and perhaps because he couldn't get he way in the First Gulf War. If you have anything to disprove this, I will gladly read it.
Posted by OneVote at 11/26/2008 @ 10:02am
But the Cheney of Ford's days and the Cheney of the First Gulf War (who didn't want to go into Baghdad AND who cut real growth in the defense budget), were relatively identical. So it's just, again, 20/20 hindsight that allows SOME to claim that they were aware of his intentions on Iraq in 2000.
Posted by Mask at 11/26/2008 @ 09:39am | ignore this person | warn this person
You seriously expect me to buy this argument? Do me a favor and switch hats for a second. What is the most glaring lapse of logic in what you posted above?
Posted by OneVote at 11/26/2008 @ 10:15am
Still sore because you voted for Bush in 2000 Mask...?
Take it easy... we all make mistakes.
I'd say it's more of an ego trip to be unable to admit a mistake than to be a misunderstood patriot on the left...:^)
Posted by ttr at 11/26/2008 @ 10:58am
Fellows, prove your point.
Again, link me to "all the articles" from 2000, from all the progressive writers you like, predicting that Bush and Cheney were "lying about this 'no nation building' stuff...they plan on overthrowing Saddam with an invasion at the first instance, in complete reversal of their take on Bosnia or Cheney's refusal to oust Saddam in 1991."
I'd be interested in seeing them.
Posted by Mask at 11/26/2008 @ 12:12pm
Cheney's refusal to oust Saddam in 1991."
I'd be interested in seeing them.
Posted by Mask at 11/26/2008 @ 12:12pm | ignore this person | warn this person
I would be interested in seeing your support that this was Cheney's call and not the President's. I would also be interested in your refutation that Cheney was not on board with the Wolfowitz Doctrine. You can dance in place all you want Mask, but you haven't plugged the holes in your own argument, and you are just repeating yourself. Tell us what Cheney was up to 1992-2000.
Posted by OneVote at 11/26/2008 @ 12:37pm
Posted by lvliberty1 at 11/25/2008 @ 11:20pm
Let's see, you stated:
"I can't even fathom how someone could have such a twisted form of logic to conclude that re-enlistment bonuses transform our military into mercenaries."
Then when I explain the logic, you basically make an argument that Blackwater wasn't a problem for the U.S. military, which is false. Fallujah, ring any bells?
Then, you make a further argument that even if the U.S. is turning to mercenaries and because of the pressures of pay, are turning its own soldiers in to quasi-mercenaries, you don't have a problem with it.
"Stop being so condescending."
Gladly, when you stop insulting people's intelligence with bogus - "how on earth can anyone think X" commentary which when explained fuller so you get your mind wrapped around it, you essentially grant the point but then turn to "So what?" Mercenaries aren't bad. The Iraq war is just pennies on the dollar compared to X. Or the various other little tricks you use to divert the point.
Posted by srjenkins at 11/26/2008 @ 1:27pm
Posted by Mask at 11/26/2008 @ 09:44am
I agree with your points. Major military powers running the show certainly don't want an international organization to rival their own power. They certainly won't give up part of their own strength for it.
I don't think that is necessarily a problem. You could have direct enlistment of nationals into a peacekeeping force that is trained by that organization independently - a foreign legion, if you will. Of course, you also have the problem that said organization would turn into another kind of nation state (the Peacekeepers of Farscape come to mind as an imaginative example)- but I'm inclined to believe that if it has no geographic border and is organized around pursuing their peacekeeping mission, that such an organization would be fundamentally different than the military of nation states. But, I could be wrong.
Still, the problem that I identified exists, and this is a possible solution. It has its own problems, but I think it is worth trying. In the meantime, I'll not argue that the U.S. military police the world, we know where that thinking leads.
Posted by srjenkins at 11/26/2008 @ 1:35pm
4-21-2000
http://content.epnet.com/pdf17_20/pdf/2000/NA T/21Aug00/3503772.pdf? T=P&P=AN&K=3503772&EbscoContent=dGJyMN Xb4kSeqLQ4zOX0OLCmrlCep7FSsay4S6%2bWxWX SAAAA&ContentCustomer=dGJyMPLe44bf6ueH7K TreefkrH3m5fGMAAAA&S=R&D=nih
--Already beaming over the choice of reactionary insider Cheney, elites speaking collectively through David Broder's typing fingers were happily reassured to learn that perhaps Bush was not quite as big a dolt as he appeared during the primary campaign. Bush, wrote Broder, following the time-honored pundit practice of transposing his own views onto hundreds of millions, "is seen by the public as a stronger leader--and, by almost any measure, a man more likely to help cure the poisonous partisanship of the capital city." --
Do the words 'reactionary insider' carry more weight now than they did then, Mask?
Posted by ttr at 11/26/2008 @ 1:41pm
Posted by srjenkins at 11/26/2008 @ 1:35pm
Oddly, you leave out a scenario, I would think somebody on the Left who has "un-ease" about the military would consider...
that of the military leadership of such an independent force, taking it upon themselves to not only "become another nation-state"...but a oppressive even INVADING one, with no one able to stop it since it would naturally give rise to a reduction in national militaries.
The problem is you have to accept SOMETHING you won't like. Just as the LVLIB types now have to accept that since they argued so vehemently for overthrowing Saddam because "he violated UN resolutions" and "was oppressing and killing his own people"....they now have to backpedal to "explain away" places like Darfur.
So too does the Left, desirous of intervention in situations like Darfur and Rwanda....now have to backpedal to "explain away" why they support "invading a country that never attacked us" (like the Sudan).
Posted by Mask at 11/26/2008 @ 1:44pm
October 16, 2000 The Nation... pgs 16-17
An almost total novice (and frequent nitwit) when it comes to foreign affairs, Bush is dependent on his father's national security advisers, including Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, Richard Armitage, Paul Wolfowitz, Brent Scowcroft, George Shultz and Condoleeza Rice. All remain intellectually imprisoned inside a manichean cold war paradigm that was already out of date when they first came into power in the early eighties. Bush's team believes in an aggressive US foreign policy backed by a strong military, but it couldn't care less about promoting human rights, labor rights or environmental protection. (Dick Cheney's vote against freedom for Nelson Mandela is entirely consistent with this worldview.) Bush's advisers do not understand, much less embrace, the emerging view of foreign policy professionals that issues like the depletion of the ozone layer, Third World debt reduction, the global AIDS epidemic, increasing depopulation of ocean fisheries and biochemical threats to the world's agri- culture qualify as foreign policy issues. "Global social work" is what Armitage calls these causes. Though not as isolationist-minded as the GOP Congress, this crew has little more use for the United Nations than does Jesse Helms. What's more, in Cheney, Bush has signed off on a politician who publicly endorsed the thuggish extraconstitutional adventurism undertaken by Oliver North during the Iran/contrascandal.
Posted by ttr at 11/26/2008 @ 3:14pm
Posted by Mask at 11/26/2008 @ 1:44pm
"that of the military leadership of such an independent force, taking it upon themselves to not only "become another nation-state"...but a oppressive even INVADING one, with no one able to stop it since it would naturally give rise to a reduction in national militaries."
Not unlike the problem of the military of nation states in general. In the U.S., this is the threat that the federal government poses to its individual states down the line to the individual. The founding fathers knew the answer to this problem - an armed citizenry and seperation of powers in the decision making process in the application of military power.
I agree with the thrust of your commentary regarding LVL using intervention as a rationalization and some of the left that argue for U.S. military intervention. I think both of those positions have many more difficulties than arguing for an international peacekeeping force - which is why I don't adopt them.
Posted by srjenkins at 11/26/2008 @ 3:28pm
'I served 4 years in the US Marine Corps but have since returned to civilian life. I can remember talks about war with Iraq taking place as far back as 2000. The higher ranks would always talk about the inevitability of another war with Iraq. Towards my end of service I openly expressed my opposition to a war with Iraq. Everyone would just look at me in awe like I had committed a sin. I would ask the men "Did you enter the military to protect fellow Americans against harm, or to fight for oil?"
Sadly, a lot of the men were convinced they wouldn't risk their lives for oil but for getting rid of the threat of Iraq. The day I was discharged from the military I told my comrades that if they do go to war not to fight to win but to fight so they could come back home alive. Anon, USA'
Thursday, 16 January, 2003, 18:59 GMT Iraq crisis: Is war inevitable? BBC
Posted by OneVote at 11/26/2008 @ 5:56pm
It will be a glorious day to celebrate if we ever leave that bunch and kick them out of our country.
Posted by lvliberty1 at 11/26/2008 @ 4:55pm
Getting there. Someone already blew up their headquarters.
Posted by Malcontent at 11/26/2008 @ 6:03pm
'SCHIEFFER: What if he did leave? What if he left this afternoon? Would we still go in?
CHENEY: Well, if -- if he left -- obviously I'm going to be careful here not to speculate. I think our goals and objective, and I think the objective of many of the Iraqi people, and the opposition, as well, too, is to establish a broadly represented government in Iraq that has new regard for the various groups and for the human rights -- protects the territorial integrity of Iraq, all of those kinds of considerations would go into what comes next. And the United States and the international community, both folks in the region as well as around the world, have a vested interest in seeing to it that if, in fact, Saddam Hussein leaves that a new government is stood up that meets those and satisfies those various standards.
It would not be enough, for example, for him to turn it over to one of his sons, both of whom are bad actors, and -- and then depart. It would have to be a new truly representative government that represented a fundamental break with the past with respect to Iraq and the Iraqi people, and how that would come about, I think, at this stage, is difficult to speculate on. Clearly, the United States would want to help in that effort.'
Face the Nation 3/16/03; Is War With Iraq Inevitable?
Posted by OneVote at 11/26/2008 @ 6:06pm
SCHIEFFER: And we're back now for some analysis and perspective with Tom Friedman, foreign affairs columnist of The New York Times. I must say, Tom, this, for me, was a very sobering interview because what the vice president seemed to be saying was 'The time has come. We're about to embark on this.'
TOM FRIEDMAN, The New York Times: I do believe, Bob, the diplomacy, basically, is over, barring some last-minute hail Mary. My guess is, talking to my own sources, that the president will address the country as early as tomorrow night...
SCHIEFFER: Really?
FRIEDMAN: ...to lay out, basically, what's at stake here. And whether you are for the war, Bob, or against the war, it's too late. There's going to be a war. And now really the question is 'Will the administration be right?' In many of the bets that it's been making, and you certainly heard the vice president lay them out here -- and let me just go through a quick...
FTN 3/16/03 Is War With Iraq Inevitable?
My "own" sources? Friedman knows more than Schieffer and has the inside track and NY Times has Judith Miller on staff!.....Looks like a done deal for sure....
Posted by OneVote at 11/26/2008 @ 6:19pm
I am not about to start legitimizing the UN at this stage of my life. It will be a glorious day to celebrate if we ever leave that bunch and kick them out of our country.
Posted by lvliberty1 at 11/26/2008 @ 4:55pm | warn this person
Glorious day for you and Israel you mean. Got a better idea....why don't you pack it up and move to Israel? That will solve both of our problems.
Posted by OneVote at 11/26/2008 @ 6:27pm
'Almost 10 years after the draft DPG was rejected, George W. Bush entered the White House and shortly thereafter was confronted with the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Following the attacks, as the White House-led campaign to invade Iraq began to gain steam, many commentators began noting striking similarities between ideas emanating from the George W. Bush administration about its "war on terror" strategy and the ideas promoted by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a neoconservative-led pressure group created in 1997 to push a "Reaganite" U.S. foreign policy in the post-Cold War world. One of the first to report on this was Jim Lobe of the Inter Press Service (IPS), who in a December 2001 IPS article pointed out that the authors of the draft DPG were ensconced in the George W. Bush administration. Lobe reported that, "When he saw it [the 1992 draft DPG] shortly after the Gulf War ten years ago, Democratic Senator Joseph Biden, now chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, denounced it as a prescription for ‘literally a Pax Americana.' The past, as is said, is prologue. At the time, Biden referred to a document by two relatively obscure political appointees at the Pentagon charged with drafting plans for U.S. defense strategy over the following decade. The authors now are back in key positions and their vision appears to be reviving."'
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1571.html
Posted by OneVote at 11/27/2008 @ 09:58am
The 1992 draft Defense Planning Guidance (DPG), crafted by then-Defense Department staffers I. Lewis Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, and Zalmay Khalilzad, is widely regarded as an early formulation of the neoconservatives' post-Cold War agenda. Under the auspices of then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, Libby and Wolfowitz, two of the few neoconservatives given posts in the realist-dominated administration of George H.W. Bush, were given the task of producing the DPG, a classified document that outlines U.S. military strategies and provides a framework for developing the defense budget. Because it would be the first DPG since the end of the Cold War, the officials had the daunting task of devising what essentially would be an entirely new framework for U.S. defense policy. In preparation for the drafting, the officials held a number of meetings with outside experts. Notable among the participants were Richard Perle, Albert Wohlstetter (former mentor to Perle and Wolfowitz), and Andrew Marshall, head of the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment (see James Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet).
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1571.html
Posted by OneVote at 11/27/2008 @ 10:01am
,The National Security Strategy issued on September 17, 2002 was released in the midst of controversy over the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war which is contained therein. It also contains the notion of military pre-eminence that was reflected in a Department of Defense paper of 1992, "Defense Policy Guidance", prepared by two principal authors (Paul Wolfowitz and I. Lewis Libby) working under then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney.'
Source: Wikipedia, query: National Security Strategy
Posted by OneVote at 11/27/2008 @ 10:06am
Posted by lvliberty1 at 11/26/2008 @ 4:55pm | warn this person
You've got no problem with US violating the sovereignty of others though do you.
Posted by OneVote at 11/27/2008 @ 10:08am
'By the end of the first Bush administration, others had come to the conclusion that Cheney and his followers were dangerous. "They were referred to collectively as the crazies," recalls Ray McGovern, a CIA professional who interpreted intelligence for presidents going back to Kennedy. Around the same time, McGovern remembers, Secretary of State James Baker and National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft counseled the elder President Bush, "Keep these guys at arm's length."'
Excerpt from:
The Curse of Dick Cheney The veep's career has been marred by one disaster after another T.D. ALLMANPosted Aug 25, 2004 12:00 AM
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/ story/6450422/the_curse_of_dick_cheney
A good read.
Posted by OneVote at 11/28/2008 @ 10:26am
Posted by lvliberty1 at 11/26/2008 @ 4:55pm | warn this person
Yes Liv....I know. 'Sovereignty' is a nice word for US unilateralism.
Posted by OneVote at 11/28/2008 @ 10:30am
Have you ever tried to cook with rotten ingredients? What you get is rotten food. People are not dogs that live in the here and now that you send to Cesar Millan for rehabilitation. Politicians are the worst kinds of people. They are cunning, pernicious, lying beings and doubly so when they are also lawyers. Putting bad people in government employment is akin to giving your house keys to thieves. Einstein: using the same people who give you negative results over and over again and expecting different results is a definition of insanity. Welcome to Obama world and he has yet to be inaugurated. Can it get any worse? Yes.
Posted by afrothetics at 11/28/2008 @ 11:32pm