Well, I predicted months ago that Bush would announce a troop pullout right around the time of the GOP national convention to try and take the sting out of the situation in Iraq. What I didn’t see coming was that he would pull them out of places where people weren’t shooting at them.
The statement he gave was, “Our service members will have more time on the home front, and more predictability and fewer moves over a career.” Now I’ve got no problem with this. Pulling troops out from Cold War posts when the Cold War has thawed is a sensible, reasonable thing to do.
The question left open is, is he going to milk the “Our boys are coming home” cow for the convention and then keep them home once they’re here (a process that will take a year or two)? Or, once re-elected, is he looking to turn around and ship them off to Iraq? Is it short-term popularity gain, long-term planning to replace dying Americans…or neither? Or both?
PAD
• 
“We conquered Iraq? When did that happen? Last I knew the country was still in a shambles, we’d set up a mock, unpopular government, and we were still fighting the citizens in the streets. Man, the things that happen when you stop reading the news long enough to go to bed!”
I had been speaking specifically of the initial overthrowing of the government, but still. 99% of the violence in the country is relegated to 2 or 3 cities. If Canada were to invade the U.S. tomorrow and overthrew the government, quickly controlling the entire country except for Memphis, Atlanta, and Tallahassee, where they are meeting heavy resistance from local militias, would you then be arguing that Canada hadn’t conquered the U.S. if the entire country wasn’t fully under control?
“Also, last I checked, we had 130,000+ troops staged in Iraq (according to CNN on 7/23/2004 we had approximately 140,000). Did they bring 120,000 troops home from Iraq? Ðámņ! There’s another piece of big news that I missed!”
I guess I’m just an idiot here. I remembered that when the initial invasion went off, there were only about 10,000 troops used to conquer the country and topple the government, and then never read (or noticed) about increasing troop levels, which I suppose I should have just assumed. My apologies there.
Bill,
In about 2 and a half weeks ago.
Yikes! My condolences. Sounds like it’ll be a little better next year, at least.
The kids are alright this year, except for the one who claims that he’s there only because his probation officer insists on it and vaguely refers to his supposed record of violent behavior. I don’t know if this is supposed to scare me, a man who has a vhs copy of Cannibal Holocaust for those slow Sunday aftyernoons, but I’ll happily flunk him if his work doesn’t improve, even if it results in my having to type these comments by holding a pencil in my mouth and slamming my face onto the keyboard.
[Tarkin] Charming … to the last. [/Tarkin] Good luck with the surly ones … and the rest for that matter.
I’ve never had those sorts of threats, probably because circumstances have kept me in the independent-school arena. When I get threats, it’s from parents who just want me to be aware they can buy and sell a few hundred of me with pocket change. Never stopped me from giving a poor grade either.
(A friend of mine who’s been at this game a lot longer than I have had one father stand over her desk and tell her to f*ck off at the top of his lungs. That was fun. The kid left the school shortly thereafter when it was made clear the dad wasn’t allowed to act that way. And no, it wasn’t Ðìçk Cheney. 🙂
TWL
Tim,
Have not talked to you in a while, but it seems like you are your usual thoughtful, passionate self.
Since Bill and yourself are conversing about your mutual profession, I just thought I would toss in my two cents.
I just want to say I have the utmost respect for your profession as a whole and you in particular (Physics? Wow!).
I feel a need to say this since the last time I discussed education with you, you were stressed grading finals and did not feel like getting in a long discussion with me on the topic.
More importantly, I feel you got the impression that I was bashing your profession, which is NOT the case.
It’s just that, even though I have no kids of my own, I feel education is THE key to our nation’s future, possibly second only to defense. And, it has been my experience that very few people have an impetus to change unless they feel they may lose something (power, money, etc.).
I have cared about education deeply since 1991. It has been driven home to me even harder about the multiple problems in the system the past few months covering school board meetings in one of the more affluent areas in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Many older people don’t want to pay any more mills for education; many parents are incorrigible; even good school board members will get excorciated if they don’t hire in the district, while at the same time get blasted if they hire a teacher that is a 42nd cousin, even if they are Nobel Prize-winning quality.
So, when I put out possible solutions to making our schools better, it’s not because I don’t care about education, it’s because i do.
Some night, maybe I can corral Jonathan Kozol, and he,Bill, you and myself could solve the whole thing over beer, wine and cheese:)
By the way, we have had our disagreements. And argued passionately and vehemently. But I’ve never called you a liar. That, in my opinion, was uncaled for.
“Well, color ME convinced! Wow! SEVERAL articles?”
How many articles do you need? If several independent sources (one of which being the official report from the 9/11 commission) agree with the facts as Moore presented them, well, I’m not sure what kind of standard you’re looking for.
“somebody will have to ewxplain to me why that’s not fair.”
A couple of reasons. First, if you do the math, the average tax cut for the wealthiest 1% was about $78,000 (give or take; too lazy to look it up but I did do the math), which amounts to about %6.5 of the average income for that group.
The average tax cut for the poorest 5% was about %1.5 of their income. Now, I do realize that the wealthiest 1% are in a different income bracket and pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes. Still, to give people making $1.2 million a year (on average) a refund that is proportionately more than [b]4 times[/b] larger than that given to the poorest (i.e. the ones who need relief the most as they live in the $16K a year range, far below the poverty line) seems incredibly unfair.
-Phinn
“I don’t even think that this particular example is the worst of Moore’s deceptions but if you want to use it as an example of Moore being unfairly critiqued then I think F-9/11 is probably even more untrustworthy than I’d assumed.”
Moore cites two sources for his information. One is [b]CNN[/b] in a paper published here: http://www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/stories/02/02/cnn.report/cnn.pdf
According to this article, at 9:54PM CNN and CBS moved Florida back to the “too close to call” column, meaning that they were calling it neither for Gore, nor for Bush.
Later in the same article “Between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., the figures show a Bush lead, but not one that is certain enough to warrant a call.” Also, at 2:10 a.m. the join CNN/CBS decision team “[i]seriously considers[/i]” calling for Bush, but they did not and Fox News beat them to the punch at 2:15a.m.
The other is PBS in an article published here:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/media/election2000/election_night.html
“At 2:16 a.m., the call was made: Fox News Channel, with Bush’s first cousin John Ellis running its election desk, was the first to project Florida — and the presidency — for the Texas governor.”
So while Fox was not the first to retract the call for Gore (i.e. moving Florida back to the “too close to call” column) they were indeed the first to declare the state for Bush. This is according to the official summary of the CNN/CBS decision making team (as recorded on CNN) and PBS.
Sorry to disappoint you, but you’ll have to keep digging to call Moore a liar.
-Phinn
“How many articles do you need? If several independent sources (one of which being the official report from the 9/11 commission) agree with the facts as Moore presented them, well, I’m not sure what kind of standard you’re looking for.”
Actually I think the commission report puts the lie to several of Moore’s claims.
Anyway, back to the original subject…I find Kerry’s response to be to, um, “nuanced” for my hillbilly mind. He has been critical of Bush’s plan, saying that it would send a wrong message to North Korea…but This Week just 2 1/2 weeks ago he said “I will have significant, enormous reduction in the level of troops. . . . I think we can significantly change the deployment of troops, not just there but elsewhere in the world. In the Korean peninsula perhaps, in Europe perhaps. There are great possibilities open to us. But this administration has very little imagination.”
I think if this election lasts long enough Kerry may well end up having the same positions I do, along with everyone elses.
“99% of the violence in the country is relegated to 2 or 3 cities.”
And, yet, the number of casualties the US has suffered since we “conquered” the country is higher than before. Odd, what with us being conquerors and all, and the number of “insurgents” increases daily with massive support pouring in for the “enemies”.
It seems to me that, once upon a time, England was in control of the colonies here, and a few reckless “insurgents” banded together to fight them. Heavy-handed analogy, perhaps, but just because a country claims to be in control doesn’t mean that it is.
Phinn
Bill,
I don’t see in that statement where he says he’d remove troops from North Korea. He says he’d “redeploy” troops, which could actually mean beefing up their numbers. Kerry has many times stated that he believes North Korea is a larger threat than Iraq ever was, and looking at his statement in that frame of mind you might assume he meant increasing the numbers as opposed to decreasing them.
The “significant reduction” of which he speaks might indicate the numbers in the middle east, especially if he can win the support of the UN, which he hopes to do.
But, really, I assumed you were more observant than to hop on the “flip-flopper” argument that is so popular with the RNC talking points. There is ample evidence that Kerry has remained consistent with his views on the war, and equal evidence that Bush has flip-flopped many, many times in his embarassingly brief political career. Furthermore, more and more members of the mainstream press (most recently Chris Matthews from Hardball after the RNC hacked up quotes from his show to push a false claim) have started calling the RNC on their blatantly misleading claims that Kerry’s statements are flip-flops. Bush, by the way, happily echoes these misleading claims, as does his vice-president.
-Phinn
“I don’t see in that statement where he says he’d remove troops from North Korea. He says he’d “redeploy” troops, which could actually mean beefing up their numbers. Kerry has many times stated that he believes North Korea is a larger threat than Iraq ever was, and looking at his statement in that frame of mind you might assume he meant increasing the numbers as opposed to decreasing them.”
I wanted to double check since the use of … can totally change the meaning of a sentence (Maureen Dowd is infamous for this. Here’s the entire transcript for that question;
Can you promise that American troops will be home by the end of your first term?
1]10:46:57 SENATOR JOHN F. KERRY (DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE)
I will have significant, enormous reduction in the level of troops. We will probably have a continued presence of some kind, certainly in the region. If the diplomacy that I believe can be put in place can work, I think we can significantly change the deployment of troops, not just there but elsewhere in the world. In the Korean peninsula perhaps, in Europe perhaps. There are great possibilities open to us. But this administration has had very little imagination, enormous sort of ideological fixation and, frankly, took its eye off the war against al Qaeda and the war on terror shifting it to Iraq at enormous cost to the American people and to the legitimacy of the war on terror.
“You can argue that he meant it to mean that he would INCREASE troops in North Korea but that would be breathtakingly cynical. I don’t see how any reasonable person could come away from that answer thinking that this was the interpretation that was meant.
For the record, I don’t think he is a flip flopper and don’t recall ever having said so. I think he’s a straddler. He thinks abortion is the taking of a human life but supports it. He thought the VFW was a fascist organization but is proud to be a member. I realize that ALL politicians do this and Bush is no exception…I just have a bad feeling that President Kerry will be an unwelcome to the kind of weak, directionless presidency we had during the Carter years, which is when a good deal of our current problems were nourished.
Personally I think a Kerry presidency will be good for Republicans, in the same way that Carter’s was but at perhaps too high a price for me to ethically wish for. Obviously, this is strictly IMO, and if he wins I promise you will see me in this very blog wish him a successful term. I’d always rather happy than right.
And Bush makes you happy? I have trouble thinking of a single thing he has done in his presidency that has been beneficial to the country. Furthermore, he often uses his spectacular actions, such as declaring war, to hide his more sinister plans.
Bush claims to be clear thinking, and direct. The truth is that he flip-flops more often (given the length of his career) than anyone else. Further more, his clarity of thinking and clear direction has hurt the US far more than it has helped.
I can understand believing in his ideals, but as I’ve said before, his execution is horribly flawed.
Phinn
I don’t think that’s what he meant, Phinn. By “happy rather than right” I suspect he meant he’d rather be happy to see a Kerry presidency turn out well than “right” in his prediction of a weak and disastrous one.
That’s how I read it. (It’s also much the same as my feelings when we went into Iraq — I thought it’d be a debacle but hoped to be proven wrong. Alas, right won the day over happy that time, at least IMO.)
Bill, feel free to correct me if I’m reading you wrong.
TWL
Tim,
Yup, you called it right.
I wrote:
“99% of the violence in the country is relegated to 2 or 3 cities.”
Phinn wrote:
“And, yet, the number of casualties the US has suffered since we “conquered” the country is higher than before. Odd, what with us being conquerors and all, and the number of “insurgents” increases daily with massive support pouring in for the “enemies”.”
And exactly how does this contradict my point? If the insurgency completely stops today, and there is a grand total of one U.S. casualty in Iraq between now and the end of the year, guess what? Our number of casualties will have still gone up. And I’m not sure that the number of insurgents is really going up all that much, but rather, I’m pretty sure that (at least most of) the insurgents that are around now were also insurgents back when the insurgency first started.
Phinn also wrote:
“It seems to me that, once upon a time, England was in control of the colonies here, and a few reckless “insurgents” banded together to fight them. Heavy-handed analogy, perhaps, but just because a country claims to be in control doesn’t mean that it is.”
You’re right, that is a rather heavy-handed analogy. But for another analogy, here’s what Life Magazine had to say on January 7, 1946 about that terrible quagmire known as post-war Germany:
http://www.kultursmog.com/Life-Page01.htm
And here are some articles from the New York Times from late 1945:
http://www.nationalreview.com/levin/levin200406011433.asp
Note that in both, one could practically just replace the word ‘German’ with ‘Iraqi’ and ‘Germany’ with ‘Iraq’ and they could both be used to discuss the current reconstruction effort.
Gorginfoogle,
And exactly how does this contradict my point? If the insurgency completely stops today, and there is a grand total of one U.S. casualty in Iraq between now and the end of the year, guess what? Our number of casualties will have still gone up.
Given that I corrected a misapprehension of Phinn’s earlier, it seems only fair that I correct a second one when it’s in his favor.
I rather strongly doubt that he meant the total number of casualties is rising — since, as you say, that particular number is going to monotonically increase short of somebody doing a Lazarus on us.
What I rather assume he meant, and what is equally true, is that the rate of casualties is still on the increase. Check the numbers yourself — US casualties in July were greater than in June, despite the hand-over of “sovereignty” (which, as we all know from hearing Bush speak, means that the nation is now sovereign and can act with sovereign rights).
And, while I’ve no intention of debating analogies, I would point out that there’s a rather huge difference between postwar Germany and postwar Iraq: the German occupation was entered into and carried out with the support of the world. Iraq, not so much.
As before — Phinn, please correct me if I mischaracterized your point.
TWL
I see. Well, presuming that’s what Phinn meant, I obviously can’t disagree, though I would still point out that the casualties (at least on the U.S. side of things) have still been amazingly low, even with the rate increase.
Grrrr. “Rate increase” sounds a bit too much like I’m talking about banking. Feel free to substitute your own better terminology there.
Man, you all come out late at night 😉
When I said “and Bush makes you happy?” my point was that I would rather give a new guy a chance to make us all happy than to extend the run of a guy who’s failed to do so for the last 3.5 years. I understood what Bill meant, but my counter-point was that Bush has already failed to make many (at least 50% of the population) happy; perhaps it’s time to give someone else a chance. I may have doubts about Kerry’s ability to lead, but I’m certain about Bush’s inability to do so.
And, yes, Tim, you were correct in your assessment of my position on the casualties in Iraq. Sorry if I wasn’t as clear as I could be. As I recall I was dividing my attention between City of Heroes and the message board here 😉
Also, my point in using the American Revolution as an analogy was that (as I stated) just because a country likes to pretend that it is in control and that the resistence is minimal doesn’t make it so.
-Phinn
Tim,
Just a couple points/questions:
1.) You say that the “occupation” of Iraq has not been done with the “support of the world”. What, to you, would constitute support ‘from the world”. We have a 31 nation coalition. England is obviously with us, and citizens from South Korea and Italy, just to name two, have been killed because their governments have troops there. Are these other countries not :big” or “important” enough? Would it seem like more of the “rest of the world” was “with” us if it was a 21 nation coalition, but France and germany were “with” us?
I truly feel this constant harping by everyone from kerry to Michael Moore to yourself that we are “going it alone” denigrates the commitment and the sacrifices these other countries have made.
2.)It is not nearly as black and white as you seem to suggest that the word universally supported us after World War II. Then, as now, there were those who admired us, hated us, and those who didn’t give a dámņ.
Thank You,
Jerome
“Personally? I lind of want to slay the dragon.”
Jerome Maida:
“We have a 31 nation coalition. England is obviously with us, and citizens from South Korea and Italy, just to name two, have been killed because their governments have troops there. Are these other countries not :big” or “important” enough? Would it seem like more of the “rest of the world” was “with” us if it was a 21 nation coalition, but France and germany were “with” us?
I truly feel this constant harping by everyone from kerry to Michael Moore to yourself that we are “going it alone” denigrates the commitment and the sacrifices these other countries have made.”
According to the United States State Department,
as of April 2002, there were 191 independent states. The State Department defines independant states as “a people politically organized
into a sovereign state with a definite territory recognized as independent by the US.”
Now, I don’t know about you but I would like at the very least, a majority of the rest of the world to go along with an operation like this. 16% of the nations of the world is not that.
The initial coalition of the willing were:
Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Australia
Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia,
Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Kuwait,
Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Marshall Islands
Micronesia, Mongolia, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Palau, Panama, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, Singapore, Slovakia, Solomon Islands, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan
now, no offense to some of these countries, but they are in the coalition simply because the US can hold the stick of “cooperate, or we won’t trade with you and thus cripple your economy” over their heads. Afghanistan is on the list simply because we made them.
Additionally, contributions from Coalition member nations can simply mean political support, at least according to the white house’s press release.
When over three quarters of the world are not behind you, and half of your on country thinks the war was a wrong and bad idea, maybe, just maybe, they’re onto something there.
The question to ask is how much a percentage of the total Coalition Troops in Irag are made up of non US soldiers?
You say that the “occupation” of Iraq has not been done with the “support of the world”. What, to you, would constitute support ‘from the world”.
Would help if we had more support from the Iraquis themselves. The Iraqi Olympic team would be ideal for this….
Adam Schwartz,
Interesting point. Allow me to respond.
First, 16% of the nations in the world seems like a small number. But I would challenge you to compare it to other conflicts. Also, what does that number mean, really? Even in the “World Wars” of the last century, I don’t recall Trinidad and Tobago – or too many nations from the African continent or the Middle east playing a pivotal role.
Second, the idea that the nations that ARE supporting us are doing so because of pressure is an invalid argument for three reasons:
A.) You fail to cite any evidence of what you claim
B.) Surely many of the countries that AREN’T supporting us felt this same pressure
C.) You don’t think certain countries that RESISTED helping us did so for political reasons, like, say, Pakistan?
And don’t even get me started on the Oil-For-Fod scandal, which is a HUGE reason neither France or Russia wanted to cooperate. They were making out just fine under Saddam’s status quo.
My main argument, though, and one I wish you would respond to, is let’s say Poland, because of the size of their country, sends a fraction of the troops we do. They are still helping us. They are still taking a risk politicaly and in terms of human lives. Yet they constantly hear from kerry and the rest of the Democratic party that the United States is “going it alone”. As if they don’t “count” because they’re not powerful enough. That is a terrible message to send.
And,if Mongolia, Slovakia and the Solomon Islands had been replaced in the coalition by France, germany and Russia would that be a stronger or more real coalition to you somehow? Even though the percentage would still be 16%?
Just wondering.
Jerome
“Personally? I kind of want to slay the dragon!”
16% is still 16%. I don’t care who would have been willing to join the Coalition, it would still be a dámņ sight short of a majority.
If oe country is going to overthrow another sovereign nation, then it should have proof, and by proof i mean irrefutable proof that the latter country was going to attack and meant harm. you know, a reason to declare war on another country.
Failing the irrefutable proof, if the former country feels it has enough proof for reasonable doubt, it should go to the UN and ask for the help of a consensus of the countries involved.
Failing to get a consensus there, maybe the country should try to get at least a simple majority of the world’s nations to back them up as they start an armed conflict that could go on with no clear end in sight.
When a government wants to topple another sovereign government, it doesn’t help their cause if a vast majority of the world, and even a good half of the government’s constituents oppose that action.
All in all, kinda makes the first government look like a bully, throwing it’s weight around and making smaller nations, who rely on the larger one for trading and for protection, accompany it.
I was not opposed to the conflict in afghanistan. They were harboring bin laden. (granted, the government we toppled there was one we had initially supported). there was a reason for that combat, and it was reactive.
irag, on the other hand, was preemptive. If you’re going to create a doctrine based on preemptive strikes, then your first use of said doctrine better be based on rock solid information. otherwise, you just tainted the doctrine and the action.
Hi, Jerome, and welcome back! I’ve missed reading your posts was starting to wonder where you were.
Unfortunately you’ve returned just as I’m taking off — I’ll be without much computer access for the next 2 months while I’m off in Vermont picking apples. So have fun, and I’ll see you when I return in October. /
Adam,
I guess we’ll agree to disagree on this for now. At least you would still hold firm in your convictions if France, Germany and Russia were involved, which is different from the responses i’ve gotten from other people.
But I still feel saying we’re “going it alone” because we don’t have our “traditional” allies is akin to saying in front of your prom date to one of your buddies. Yeah, I’m basically going to the prom stag because Ms. Joanie popularity turned me down.
It’s just rude, and does nothing to nurture “new” allies.
That’s all.
Nova Land,
Glad to be back. It’s been crazy lately! But thanks for the kind words and have fun in Vermont!
Jerome
“Personally? I kind of want to slay the dragon!”
PAD wrote:
“Or, once re-elected, is he looking to turn around and ship them off to Iraq? Is it short-term popularity gain, long-term planning to replace dying Americans…or neither? Or both?”
Forget the politics. This is something that, in my opinion, that should have been done 5-10 years ago. Note that the realignment will bring about 100,000 dependents home as well as the 70,000 troops. Imagine what it has been costing every year since the end of the Cold War to keep these 170,000 Americans overseas, particulary in Germany, where the Cold War mission has long since vanished. Why not keep return all these people to the U.S., where OUR economy will benefit, and then rotate the troops overseas when and where it’s necessary?