Can't Win, Can't Lose
Fascinating. Don Rumsfeld says
"You've got a situation [in Iraq] where it's not possible to lose militarily," Rumsfeld said. "It's also going to require more than military power to prevail."
These things strike me as interesting about this assessment:
- NB: He's not saying it is impossible not to win, only that we cannot lose;
- He's discovered, therefore, the previously excluded middle, which is quite a step for this heretofor "you're either for us or agin us" administration;
- Is this, therefore, a new high-water mark for the administration's skill at prevaricating?
- The administration, so far, has been unable to say what winning this war would mean; however, they now seem clear on what not losing it would mean.
- To those of us who do not accept the law of the excluded middle in general, the last point is basically devoid of useful content.
- Can we expect anyone to ask just how long the American people would like to continue "not losing" the war on terror?
- Is "not losing" then similar to not winning? Logic doesn't say.
- If "losing" is not an option, and "winning" not likely, is "not losing" a satisfying alternative?
- Whatever are we to do with all those frustrated conservatives for whom a stunning victory (i.e., not "not losing") in Iraq was to be the comeuppance for all those peacenik liberals who made us lose (i.e., not "not losing") in Vietnam?
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on Wednesday, 18 October 2006 at 19.59
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I was saying the same thing about this time of year in 2003. It's good to learn this small germ of insight has penetrated so deeply into the Pentagon that even Rumsfeld has got it.
However, in your quote, he doesn't include the rest of my take: the insurgents, who are waging effective guerrilla war on the cheap, can keep this up indefinitely.
Now, however, their murderous efforts are multiplied by those of sectarian militias and ordinary criminals. The country has broken down into psychopathic chaos. A free-for-all of murder and mayhem, in other words.
Great advertisement for democracy throughout the Middle East, eh? Great calling card for future American interventions, in lands beset by Muslim extremists trying for a takeover, wouldn't you say?
As we saw with the Vietnam War, domesticallly, there comes a point at which the politics of staying the course turns to quicksand beneath the feet of stubborn leaders. Congress cuts off funding, and that's that.
on Thursday, 19 October 2006 at 00.55
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"It's also going to require more than military power to prevail." I'm not sure Rumsfeld is calling for a middle way. He seems to be decrying the Iraqis' inability to fashion a political state that can arrest criminals.
Another problem is the lack of infrastructure improvement. We are allegedly spending $2 billion a week, but it seems after filtering through the various bureaucratic capillaries and insurgent destruction, there is not much left for improvements on the ground.
on Thursday, 19 October 2006 at 04.00
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We're not spending much of anything for infrastructure repairs or improvements in Iraq. We haven't been since last year. Bush & Co. gave up on that.
on Thursday, 19 October 2006 at 15.38
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Excuse me for being stupid, but where is this alleged $2 billion a week being spent? It can't cost that much to garrison 138,00 troops in a war zone.
on Thursday, 19 October 2006 at 17.06
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Don't kid yourself, RSF, those troops cost a bundle every second of every day. But there's so much more.
We taxpayers, thanks to Bush & Co., are still carrying on our backs Halliburton, Bechtel, the Lincoln Group, a whole big bunch of phantom contractors and such.
We taxpayers, thanks to Bush & Co., are still carrying on our backs much of the civilian population of Iraq. The economy is in paralysis. They produce little for domestic consumption and next to nothing for export. Unemployment is north of 60 percent. So how do they live? We employ a whole bunch of Iraqis various ways, in addition to which we hand out billions of greenbacks to the locals. It's a form of pacification, and you can bet some are near starvation while others are getting rich off of it. You can bet the money handouts are being run as ineptly and corruptly as everything else.
And, RSF, don't be surprised if in a few years it comes out that some of that money was siphoned off for the benefit and use of the Republican Party back here at home. Billions being funneled here and there with little or no accounting invite that sort of thing.
on Thursday, 19 October 2006 at 19.03
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The sources I checked list the GDP of Iraq as equalling the $2 billion a week figure. They must be producing something there, or at least spending our money on something.
The contracts for Bechtel and Haliburton are in the $100's of millions.
Waste and channelled funds? Even with the feeble oversight our feds usually provide, something should be getting through to do some good. I need to do more research.
on Friday, 20 October 2006 at 16.29
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RSF wrote:
"Even with the feeble oversight our feds usually provide, something should be getting through to do some good. I need to do more research."
Spare yourself the trouble. There's no way to accurately assess Iraq's economy; it's too dangerous. You might as try to assessing a 20-story apartment building that's on fire.
A bunch of people go to work in a drycleaning plant. Next day, the bodies of 20 of them are found in an alleyway, bound, gagged, tortured and executed. Some have been beheaded. A handful of men work in a barber shop, until they're hauled out in the street, humiliated and executed. Then, it's a bakery, a restaurant, a marketplace.
What do you think happens to the drycleaning plant? Who wants to reopen it? Who would want to work there? Who would even want to risk taking clothes there? Same goes for the barber shop and even others like it. And so on.
As Rumsfeld acknowledged, they can't fight us head on and drive us out. But we can't fight them head on until we've won either.
The question then morphs from who wins vs. who loses to how much hell are the noncombatant civilians going to be put through before one side or the other can't stomach putting them through any more.