But, I can’t overlook the simple fact that history is full of states that stopped functioning overnight. In every case there was mass chaos and looting. If the Pentagon was actually suprised with the widespread looting after Baghdad fell, I can’t understand why.

To that extent, I agree with you.

The Bush administrtion’s goal has been to “beat the Iraqi Army” and the people will welcome us with flowers and parades. That initial goal has been fatally flawed and focused the army on the wrong goal. In a sense Rumsfeld was totally correct; we didn’t need 300,000 troops to beat Saddams army because the troops that were there did spectacularly against the army. The problem was that he was right about the wrong thing.

This shortsighted focus is responsable for most, if not all, of our current problems in Iraq. It underlies it all from not restoring public services, to post invasion looting (weapons dumps to museums), to expensive mistakes like “Iraq will pay for it’s own reconstruction with oil money”. (remember that?)

I don’t fault the administration for not meddling in detailed tactical decisions and insisting that this one explosives cache be guarded. I fault them for focusing the effort on the shortsighted war effort (ousting Saddam) and ignoring reconstruction, even when many people (including several generals and the Secretary of State) were saying this was going to be the main issue. This explosives cache is just one of many examples of the fallout.

I do agree that CBS’s original decision to wait until this Sunday to air the story IS EXTREMELY SHADY AND VERY WRONG. I don’t believe that the entire media as a whole is liberal leaning. I do believe that the entire media as a whole, as Jon Stewert so eloquently put it, “are partisan, what do you call it, hacks”.
http://www.ifilm.com/filmdetail?ifilmid=2652831
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0410/15/cf.01.html

So, I find it interesting that Kerry, who served in Viet Nam while President Johnson was single-handedly running the war from the White House, expects Bush to have his fingers in every pie, instead of permitting the trained generals to run the war (under the principle of subsidiarity, which is common among conservatives). Why else would Kerry bring up Tora Bora and these explosives in an election contest?

Now for the less-partisan part:

It is true that in both Tora Bora and Iraq, the White House, Pentagon (the civilian side), or Rumsfeld had a hand in setting up the parameters that the military had to operate under. For instance, in Iraq, Rumsfeld set the troop levels, and the generals decided to “leap frog” to Baghdad (i.e. put off important areas until after the government had fallen). In Tora Bora, I’m not quite sure what influence the civilians had on the final strategy to rely on locals. The Green Berets have existed for a long time specifically to train local fighters to support US troops (and cut US losses). That idea was originally a civilian one, but not Bush’s (something tells me it was part of Nixon’s Vietnamization of Viet Nam, but I may be wrong). However, I believe that some civilian leader told the generals to keep the US body count low, so the generals used the locals because, according to the field manual, that was The Right Way To Keep The US Body Count Low.

Voting against Bush for this reason (setting unrealistic parameters) is legitimate, although I will disagree with you. As a civilian who has never entered the military (that is, take this with a shaker of salt), I remember the 9/11 Commission found out that Clinton considered invading Afghanistan for many of the same reasons Bush finally did (and reasons, IMO, similar to the ones that justified invading Iraq), but the military wouldn’t cooperate. Instead of telling Clinton to “shove it,” the military simply concocted war plans that required unrealistically high troop levels. Clinton recognized that asking for that many troops would be political suicide, and didn’t follow through.

When the military told Rumsfeld that it needed something like 300,000 troops, he figured it was the same kind of stonewalling, and responded by setting a date to go in with 100,000. The military came up with a viable plan for invading with that number, and (IMO) the war has gone as well as anyone can expect a war to go.

But, as I said, if you think it was wrong for Rumsfeld to set the level at 1/3 of the military’s estimate, you have a legitimate reason to vote against Bush. I don’t think it’s legitimate to complain that Bush doesn’t have his fingers in every pie, since we already know where that would lead us. In Viet Nam, it was common for orders to come from the States that simply didn’t reflect the real situation on the ground. That was a natural side effect of Johnson directing the war single-handedly.

Anonymous:
I am a parent, and emotional appeals to my daughter’s safety is not effective nor appreciated. I hold the views I do precisley for my daughter’s sake. We as a country are becoming more and more divisive for a variety of reasons. Ths blog has been one of the very few meeting places I have left to get some semblance of sane disscussion. (Thank you Max, our disagreements always leave me with something to think about.) Reasoned understanding will protect all of us better than panicy appeals to “our kids”.

As for Kerry or Bush protecting us better, do you really think that any president will actually not protect us? The opposition to the war in Iraq is precicely because it didn’t protect us and it wasn’t self defense. I think and believe that Kerry will do a better job of protecting us because he is more willing to understand that “protecting us” and “killing people and blowing stuff up” is not always the same thing, and in fact is sometimes at odds.

As for the “godless liberals” in the US being the target, what is your point? Are you honestly saying that if we all suddenly see the light that the terrorists will no longer attack us? That has to be the worst argument for social conservatism I have ever heard, even if it that would appease the terrorists. And, from what I understand, Al-Quaeda also has major issues with our free markets and “corrupt capitalism”.

One of my big concerns with Bush is actually that our rights are being thrown away in this country (Patriot act being the most glaring example) and we aren’t getting anything at all in return.
See:
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0402.html

And on a final note “You really need to start thinking for yourself” and “you know if you listen to it that ONLY �W� comes to mind” in the same point really is contradictory. I have thought for myself, and come to different conclusions.

[new statement]
To the extent that you find WMDs more important than WMD programs meant to create WMDs meant to kill people (probably Israelis, but I believe the US was on the short list), and the extent that you believe Bush would justify invading a country on information he knew (or should have known) would prove false in the aftermath — when he could have used various other justifications (such as the regular attacks on US forces patrolling the no-fly zone) — and the extent that you were “only kidding” when you opposed reviving the “Star Wars” defense programs because the real threat was state-sponsored terrorism using WMDs “like the ones we gave Iraq,” and the extent you decided before the invasion that the weapons we gave Iraq wouldn’t justify the invasion — only new Iraqi-made weapons would — you have a legitimate reason to oppose Bush on this matter. In that case, we have a difference of opinion.
[/new statement]

It should be remembered that Kerry wishes to take care of terrorism (and states that sponsor terrorism) with the same tactics Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush (I and II), Clinton, and even Carter used. Those tactics include freezing assets (Iranian hostage crisis), lawsuits (Libya), military responses to terrorist attacks, pulling out of places (Beruit), using allies, and police action.

Following those tactics for 30 years failed to prevent the destruction of the World Trade Center. Perhaps that is unfair, since even Bin Laden didn’t expect the planes to actually topple the Twin Towers. So, except for unusual attacks (such as the Kobar Towers, and the Cole), those tactics caused terrorists to keep death tolls in the 10-30 range. Less than 10 bodies wouldn’t make headlines, more than 30 bodies would risk military action.

To the extent that you feel Bush was trigger happy invading Iraq, and the extent that you believe Iraq posed no real threat to the US, you have a legitimate reason to oppose his re-election. I, personally, believe that when everything short of an invasion has been tried (say 10+ years of sanctions, continual military action in the form of a no-fly zone, and relying on the support of countries involved in undermining the sanctions and the no-fly zone), an invasion is necessary and acceptable to prevent state-sponsored terrorism — even when the terrorists aren’t named “Al Quaeda.”

But, if you believe that Iraq posed no real threat, who did you believe was behind the anthrax letters? I know that the anthrax wasn’t from Iraqi stock, but wasn’t Iraq the first suspect?

I remember whose “side” Hussein was “on” in the 1980s…

An eighteen month old news story spun out by those bastions of non-partisan credibility, the NYT and CBS, and that could not make it out of a 24 hour cycle before being to a large degree discredited by the likes of the embedded NBC reporters and more than twelve years of experience and evidence regarding Iraq are hardly similar.

As to WMD, I would suggest that you read RICHARD SPERTZEL’s Op/Ed in the WSJ, 10/14 and then start work on the Iraq Survey Group’s Duelfer report (1000+ pages) before Tuesday.

Max, I don’t disagree with many of your statements regarding Iraq doing their best to get around the sacntions and inspectors. But those reasons weren’t trotted out to the American people or the world. We could have waited for inspectors to finish their searches, until Afganistan was stable, until we brought more allies to the table, until we had a good plan and enough troops and secure the country. (And yes I was arguing about this being the real problem during the actual invasion, when everything was going extremely well.)

And now to Alan’s points:
/*1. Ally ourselves with countries who support dictators with weapons and air coverage at the UN and actively work against our interests*/

Working with dictators unfortunately is neccesary. Bush works with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and others. I’m not happy about anyone doing it, but it’s unfortunately neccesary. (No I don’t fault Bush for this.) As for the UN, sometimes you have to moderate your stances in order to get long run payoffs of actually having real alliances. In the case of self defence, then obviously we ignore the UN if they balk, but I doubt they will in real self defense issues; they did completely agree to Afganistan afterall. However, since there were no actual WMD’s, the invasion of Iraq WAS NOT SELF DEFENSE. (that is why it is such a huge deal.)

/*3. Give nuclear materials to a terrorist supporting state*/
I assume you are talking about North Korea. They already have nuclear materials. The goal is to help them develop a nuclear power infrastructure that can’t be used for weapons. Yes, I think it’s extortion, yes we need to deal with them in the long term, but we need to get them under control now so they don’t build more nukes.

/*4. Actively go against our allies wishes in Asia by starting unilateral talks with North Korea*/
I was under the impression that China, Japan, Russia and the others just want them to stop, and they were happy with unilateral talks until Bush ignored them completely. If our allies would prefer to be involved, then I definately agree with you and disagree with Kerry. This is one of those things where having allies on board will help a ton.

/*5. talk with criminal regimes because he �feels� that our being tough with them has made them more criminal*/
Don’t have any idea what you are talking about. Can you give me the specifics?

/*6. Denigrate our true allies in the hopes of winning the friendship of those who despise us.*/

“our true allies”… wow that sounds like the old vs new europe crack. We don’t have much in the way of allies left after Bush & co’s antics. While Blair stands very much with the US, most of the UK people are not happy with the US. After their next election, we’ll see how much that remains. “True allies” doesn’t mean they always have to agree with us….. especially when it turns out that they were right and we were wrong about the level of threat Iraq posed.