Ace [1] has some thoughts on the recent noise over Iraq… Specifically, as regards the Iraq surrender group:
It’s artificial.
By this I mean there was no seismic change in the circumstance in Iraq. Incrementally most say it has gotten worse, but worse in a specific way: sectarian violence has increased. There has been an increase in US combat deaths, but such rises and declines in combat intensity has been largely cyclical; there may be some reason to fear that it will only get worse from here, but there is also good reason — the whole history of the war — to suspect it will abate. And then, later, increase in intensity again.
The sudden determination — now the Conventional Wisdom, according to the media — that everything has gone to hell and that we must get out immediately if not sooner is almost entirely a creation of the Democratic victory in November, and the media’s consequent emboldment to say clearly and forcefully the things they’ve been thinking since, oh, before the war began, and since the one-day “quagmire” in the actual invasion when our troops had to stop moving due to sandstorms.
It’s not real. There was no genuine “Iraqi Tet,” and even to the extent there was something of an Iraqi Tet, we know something about Tet offensives: they’re designed not to achieve military victories, but public opinion victories in America.
This is precisely correct. Alas, that having identified the problem, doesn’t mean solving it…. And the democrats, much to their countries detriment, couldn’t care less having benefited greatly from that public relations effort on the part of the terrorists.
The warplan should be the opposite of that suggested by Baker. Baker claims we must stop making fighting Al Qaeda the priority, and instead seek peace. That’s quite wrong. We should refocus on killing Al Qaeda and Shi’ite militiamen who attack US troops, and let peace seek itself, through the brutal methods by which peace is usually ultimately had.
The word “pacify” has a nice connotation, suggesting coddling a baby by giving it warm milk to suckle on. In historical reality, populations are “pacified” through extremely brutal, dirty, and nasty means, killed, raped, butchered, and driven out of their homelands until they ultimately lose all hope of military victory and all desire to fight.
Correct. Read again, what I posted earlier today, from VDH:
in those days, peace and reconstruction followed rather than preceded victory. In tough-minded fashion, we offered ample aid to, and imposed democracy on, war-torn nations only after the enemy was utterly defeated and humiliated.
And again, what I posted from Cicero’s De Officiis by way of Jason Papas:
“The only excuse, therefore, for going to war is that we may live in peace unharmed; and when the victory is won, we should spare those who have not been blood-thirsty and barbarous in their warfare. For instance, our forefathers actually admitted to full rights of citizenship the Tusculans, Acquians, Volscians, Sabines, and Hernicians, but they razed Carthage [in the 3rd Punic War] and Numantia [in Spain, 134 BC] to the ground.”
For James Baker, the focus that he’d like to see is more on the Palestinian and Israeli questions. But, I’ve provided plenty in the way of proof [2] that peace is not on the minds of the Palestinians.
The reason that they haven’t wanted peace is because they haven’t been defeated yet. Not really. When I say defeated I mean utterly crushed. Until that happens, peace negotiations are used as would be any other weapon; against their declared enemy.
We’ve been spending so much time trying to reconstruct Iraq, that we forgotten the first purpose of going in there the first place; that was to defeat the enemy.
Today being December 7th, draws a great comparison…. Imagine trying to reconstruct Japan while the Kamkazie planes are still falling on our ships. No, we had to drop a couple atomic bombs to get the place pacified, first.
Imagine trying to play meals on wheels in Germany before the truce was signed. No, we had t firebomb a few cities first, to take the fight out of them. Brutal? Certainly… but how would we have fared without such actions? Iraq gives us the answer.
Fill in the blanks people… this isn’t rocket science.
Update:
Captain’s Quarters is a little kinder… remarking at one point [3] that :
The fundamental problem with the ISG is to misunderstand the entire war on terror.
And later [4], that:
…its recommendations descend from some strange Utopian vision of peace and brotherhood that only exists in the fevered imagination of the so-called realists.
…
The ISG wants us to believe that Iran and Syria have no interest in instability in the region. That’s an interesting perspective, since the two are the most notorious terror-sponsoring states in the world.
And therein, lies the problem. There is a steadfast refusal on the part of some in Washington, and the majority on the left in the remainder of the country, to it now is that some people simply don’t want peace, which is precisely how we got here in the first place.