Mark, what's interesting about the Israeli situation is that it's the same scenario that many Liberal Democrats would like the U.S. to settle into. That is, to get terrorism back, as John Kerry put it, "to a level where it's just a nuisance" that we can live with. I realize, given the size disparity between Israel and the U.S., that we're never going to have terrorists sitting just across the border shooting rockets at us. But imagine getting used to an occasional suicide bombing of a restaurant, movie theater or church. That's the least of what we would have to look forward to if the Dems get back in power, and if any of you resident Libs can cite me some evidence that that would not be the case, I'm open to hear it. The only time I can think of in the last century where a conflict ended in peace without one side being totally and utterly defeated was Vietnam, and even that ended with the slaughter of several million innocent people and the internment of a couple more million in "re-education camps" after we pulled out. A small price to pay so we could leave "with honor", right?

I'd like, as much as anyone, for civilization to get to the point where conflicts are not resolved by the aggressive use of force, but we aren't there yet, and until we are, political correctness and warfare are as incompatible as oil and water. If we are ever to get to that point, it is going to be through the expansion of freedom around the world, not by appeasing people like Sadaam Hussein. I don't have a link to it, but I read a while back that there have been more free and democratic countries emerge in the last half century than in all the rest of human history combined. That trend must be continued.

The problem I see with the Isreali-Palistinian conflict is that you have a bunch of civilized people (Isreal) living next to a bunch of savages (Palestine).

I don't have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times that Isreal has stopped fighting, pulled back, whatever, only to have the savages attack again.

You want the problem to go away? Eliminate the problem. Pure and simple.

Retired Spook

I think your analysis is spot on. I think the Bush administration understands that the only way to achieve long term peace is through the expansion of liberty. I think where we made a mistake was in pushing for a Palestinian state. When Israel unilaterally cedes land to a terrorist entity all this does is strengthen the terrorist entity. This puts everyone in a much mor dangerous situation.

I should point out that "liberty" and "democracy" are not the same thing. In a democracy people can vote but it is more important how people vote than the fact that they vote.

If someone broke into your house in 1967 and plopped themselves on your couch, then remained there for 40 years despite your efforts to boot them, would you be angry ?

I should point out that "liberty" and "democracy" are not the same thing. In a democracy people can vote.....

B. Poster, agreed; Iraq under Sadaam was technically a democracy because the people could (were mandated to) vote, but they certainly weren't free. In fact, if they didn't vote, many weren't even alive. I guess I view liberty as the right of self-determination rather than as Democracy per se. What individual nations do with that right is up to them. It's just that the vast majority (if not all) of free nations are Democratic in nature. The main point, which President Bush has made on numerous occasions, is that free, democratic nations tend not to make war on each other. It would be interesting, if any of us live long enough to see every nation on earth become free, whether or not that eliminates war. Teenage Liberal might get to see that, but I doubt that I will, although, sadly, if left up to people like him, it will never happen.

Retired Spook

Thanks for the reply to my post. I think the notion that free, democratic nations generally do make war on one another seems to be valid. They will often times play some nasty tricks on each other but generally they don't seem to engage in shooting wars with one another. Whether or not this pattern will hod true over the long hall, is not known right now. As I said before, it is more important how people vote than whether they vote. For example the Palestinians voted for a terrorist group to represent them!! We made a mistake in supporting the creation of a state that we should have known would be a terrorist state that would be carved out of our ally. I hope we learn from this and get it right going forward. Unfortunately the spirit of appeasement seems to be alive and well. We appeased and we got 911. We've tried to appease the Palestinians and all we've got are more dead Israelis.

Constructive critiques on how the war has been engaged should be given. As a retired CIA person you will no doubt have perspectives that the average American does not have. With this in mind, if you are still monitoring this thread, I would like to ask you some questions.

1.) I admit I can get overly exited and sometimes will over estimate a threat. With this in mind, it seems obvious that Russia has been complicit in arming our enemies yet this administration seems to make very little effort to confront Russia on this. Clearly provoking the Russian bear is dangerous business. Do you think the administration is working behind the scenes to resolve this diplomatically or do you think the US government just does not get it?

2.)It seems to me that it should have been obvious from the beginning that the military force committed to Iraq was not large enough. Underestimating the size of the force that would be needed is understandable. Mistakes can and do happen. When mistakes are made, one makse couse corrections. What bothers me is nothing seems to have been done to address this. Why do you think little effort has been made to address this? Admitedly for me to try and decide how many forces are needed and where and how they should be deployed would be playing "arm chair general." It could be argued that such things are the height of hubris. There could be something here that I am missing. If I'm missing something, can you please shed some light on what that might be?

Your time permitting, I appreciate your response.

Al

The war in 1967 was engaged in because of repeated threatening actions by the Arabs. Until the Arabs quit behaving like savages, Israel should be looking to expand their territory to create a greater buffer between them and the terrorists. Until this time, attempts at appeasement will likely only lead to greater blood shed on all sides. According to the Israelis the size of the state of Israel is negotiable. The problem is the Palestinians have not recognized Israel's right to exist at all, at least not in Arabic to their own people. When one side refuses to recognize the legitimate rights of the other, there is nothing to negotiate.

Art Patscheck said,

"You want the problem to go away? Eliminate the problem. Pure and simple."

So, you're saying that Israel should exterminate all palestinians living in Israel. Is that what you're saying? Kind of like what the germans did to the jews during WWII?

B. Poster, you've raised some interesting questions, that, for the most part, I'm not qualified to answer. First off, though, I retired from the NSG (Naval Security Group) SIGINT community in 1989, largely as a result of the Cold War ending. The NSG is/was one of many providers of intelligence to the CIA and other intelligence agencies. The term "Spook" encompasses a lot of people engaged in a lot of different aspects of intelligence gathering.

I have no up-to-date information about diplomatic relations with Russia, although I correspond occasionally with a former Navy Intel officer who retired in the mid 90's who still has active ties to the Spook Community. I will relay your question regarding provoking the "Russian Bear". My gut feeling is that there is much that goes on behind the scenes that you and I will never find out about.

With regard to your second question, there are actual retired generals who are attempting to play "arm chair general" without much credibility, whose motivations, IMO, are primarily political. I'm inclined to take Bush at his word that the commanders on the ground have been the primary determiners of the strength of forces. Our biggest mistake (and one that VP Cheney publicly admitted recently) was grossly underestimating the strength and intensity of the insurgency. To my knowledge, no one has ever run the perfect war -- mistakes happen. I don't have any links that I can steer you to, but it's clear to me, from a lot of the milblogs that I've read over the last year or so, that we have made a number of course corrections. As I mentioned on another thread recently, I'm generally not one to get worked up over things about which I have no direct knowledge nor over which I have any control. History, IMO, will be the ultimate judge of whether the venture into IRAQ was worth the cost, and that judgement won't be made any time soon.

B.Poster,

In regards to why the administration has made little progress in correcting its initial mistakes made in executing it's war plan, I think that you need look no farther than Donald Rumsfeld and his crew. Rumsfeld continues, to this day, to refuse to give any ground whatsoever to his numerous critics from all ranks and branches of the military.

The same hubris you speak of is evident in many of Rumsfeld's clan as well, such as Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith (whom Gen. Tommy Franks called "the stupidest f*cking person on the face of the earth").

The real problem is that Bush seems to demand no accountability from Rumsfeld, and that's a problem because Rumsfeld can be accountable ONLY to Bush.

From the beginning, the Bush administration has been trying to have its cake and eat it too; they wanted the war, and they wanted it to be quick, cheap, and easy. They wanted to look good to the American people, and not burden us with an enormous war bill, and yet sacrifice nothing in their war objectives.

The astonishing thing to me (and most of the adminstration's military critics) is that they actually seemed to believe that they could do it this way. Thus they maintained a ludicrously naive set of expectations. For example, remember when the administration told us that American troops would be "showered with flowers" when they enetered Baghdad? I don't about you, but I and my friends were incredulous that anyone could really believe this, let alone say it out loud.

Retired Spook, you repeated Cheney's assertion that they "underestimated" the strength and scope of the insurgency. Cheney waited until just recently to admit something that has been obvious for years. And he offered no ither explanation. For instance, the administration has not explained why they ignored the advice of the military command they not hastily dismantle the remaining Iraqi security forces (police, mostly), and instead train and utilize them. The civilian interim administrator wrote a book containing a weakly-worded excuse for the administrations actions, which could be summed up as "we thought it made sense". What were the consequences? The military had warned that immediately disbanding all of Iraq's existing security forces would create a flood of angry, unemployed young ba'athists who would be ripe targets for insurgent campaigns. In short, a recipe for an instant insurgency. This in addition to the added chaos of suddenly un-policed urban areas. The military cautioned repeatedly that they were not equipped to act as police in addition to fighting the overall war. They were ignored, and result has been EXACTLY what they sid it would be: a thriving and deadly insurgency and a desperate lack of police in all urban areas. This was not a mistake, or and "underestimation". This was, in B.Poster's words, hubris.

May I also point you to way in which our military was long denied upgrades in armor, both body armor and vehicular upgrades? Remember when Rumsfeld was finally confronted publicly about it, BY A SOLDIER in Iraq? Remember the "oh shit, is this being televised?" look on his face? The adminstration was steadfast in it's refusal to substantially upgrade (hell, provide even) personal and vehicular armor to our troops. It took Rumsfeld's public embarassment, in addition to a long string of deadly attacks, to get them off their butts.

Our military know how to fight wars. This seems like a such an obvious statement, but it's meaning is lost on our president. Who do you go to when you need to plan a war? Our military prefers to control and dominate large-scale conflict with overwhelming force. It big, loud, very expensive, and it it works. And many in the military leadership would also claim that it is the only way ensure the desired outcome. Bush and Rumsfeld disagreed, which is OK, we elected him (twice) to use his best judgement. But when they KEEP refusing to adapt to in the face of rapidly deteriorating circumstances, then I have to wonder if pride plays a bigger role than honest judgement.

This war is nowhere near done. We CAN'T leave now, this much should be obvious to anyone with even an shred of concern for either the Iraqi people or our own safety. People like John Kerry prove they care for nothing other than their own political ambition when they suggest that we need to "get out of there".

The war is already vastly more costly (in terms of lives and money) than what the administration estimated, and this is OK. Again, we elected them twice. What is not OK is that the administration's estimates were either grossly naive, or deliberately optimistic. There is a distubingly large amount of evidence to support the latter. Either way, at the beginning of the war, there was a chorus of voices from the military and intelligence communities saying, "no, no, this thing is ultimately going to be much bigger and more costly then the administration thinks".

And whether naive or deliberately optimistic, if Bush had either been more realistic or more honest when we made his case for war to the American people, then he would have told us to expect to pay several hundred billion dollars, and to expect a very long-term commitment. And honestly, we may have supported the war regardless. But we deserve his candor.

A more honest or realistic or honest administration would also have dispensed with all that BS about achieving a "united, democratic Iraq". We knew that was a stupid thing to expect because we just witnessed a similar breakup of a multi-cultural, dictatorship-controlled nation when the former Yugoslavia dissintigrated. The most obvious geographic outcome to this war was as evident in 2001 as it is now: a Shiite nation in the south, and Suuni nation in the middle, and a Kurdish nation in the north. Does anyone here honestly think we can, or should, try to force these three groups to hold hands? Damn.

As it stands, I am personally going to have pay as much as ten thousand dollars, maybe even more, to finance this war (a conservative estimate given my and my wife's tax bracket). That's my part, and I would be willing to pay it in order to help bring democracy to a nation. And I would have GLADLY paid it if I were assured that the American military would have the latitiude and the resources to do the job that way it knows it needs to be done. But that's not what happened. Rumsfeld hasn't changed a bit, and Bush has only adapted by switching up some catch-phrases. Bush doesn't help me to justify that ten-grand that I'm spending by telling me that I'm safer and more secure. Not now. That MIGHT have been the case had he allowed the military to do its job the way they wanted to, but not now. Does anyone really dare suggest that the muslim world is LESS motivated to hurt Americans now? Or that we've really killed enough of the bad guys to make us feel safer?

It really doesn't matter anyway; I never actually FELT "threatened by terrorists". Each of us is personally at far greater risk from drunk drivers, violent crime, killer bees, take your pick. Even if I was safer now from "terrorists", was it worth the ten grand that it cost me? How dare the president even suggest that I be satisfied with that? I, and many others like me, only want to hear one thing: my government is going to do what it said it would do in Iraq, learn from it's mistakes, and stop lying to me. That's it.

I really need to proofread my comments. That "civilian interim administrator" that I mentioned is Paul Bremmer, and his book is called "My Year In Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope". Reading it is helpful in understanding just how incompetent our civilian military leadership is.

Nate

Thanks for the response. You may be correct. There may be some hubris in the decisions made by the Bush Administration. What is clear is mis calculations were made. If it was an honest mistake or because of arrogance I don't know. i'm inclined to think it is some combination of the above. What is important is that we get this right. If we need more troops and better equipment, there probably is still time to get this done.

From what I have read, a compelling case could be made that Don Rumsfeld should have been fired long ago. If I were POTUS, I would have fired him. We judge a leader by results and not by intentions. Some of the Generals have criticized Rumsfeld. I have also heard some issue statements in support of him. The media focuses on the opposition because it suits their agenda. I'm inclined to believe there could be some political posturing on the part of the generals. Also, I think a sincere desire to get this right plays a role here to. In retrospect, it seems we should have used more troops and more equipment. In other words, it will be better to overestimate the threat than to under estimate it. As to why more troops are not being committed to the theatre now, I'm inclined to believe the Generals on the ground request the troop levels. Perhaps they are afraid of Rumsfeld or the President. this is still somewhat puzzling, but as retired spook says there are likely things that go on that we do not know about.

When the Baathists were disbanded, this seems to have created a power vacum. We never had enough troops to fill the power vacum. Given that we never wanted to own the country and we still don't, this seems to have been a bad decision. I think this alone is probably worth firing someone. I suspect a combination of arrogance and honest mis calculation played a role. At this point, I don't care how we got here. We need to make course corrections to get this right!!

The main thrust of your point seems to be you want the President and the Government to level with us and you want results. I agree. We need to make whatever course corrections are necessary to get this right.

Nate

One more thing about troop levels and body armor. I hope they are finally doing something about the body armor issue. I understand soldier are sometimes having to purchase their own. This is unacceptable. As for troop levels, it seems to me that it would have made a significant difference had we used the overwhelming troop forces that Colin Powell and others had wanted to use, in the begining. The frustrating thing is I think we can still make this course correction and commit more troops to Iraq to help bring the security situation under control. The sad thing is had we used the overwhelming force in the begining we probably would have saved money and the terrorists would have been able to kill less people. Sure it would have been more costly in the begining but the long range cost probably would have been less both in terms of financial costs and in lives lost. I use the word "probably" for a reason. We do not "know" what would have happened had we employed a different strategy. For someone to claim that we do, is a variation of the same hubris that they accuse the administration of having. I agree with you that the civilian administration botched the execution of their duties through a combination of arrogance, honest mistakes, and out and out theft of assets. The main problem I have with the term "incompetent to describe the civilian authority is it implies their job is easy or should be. I don't think it is easy at all.

The bottom line is the results of the war in Iraq have been spotty at best to date. If we are going to win, we need to make adjustments. If we don't make adjustments, the very noble goal of bringing liberty to the Iraqis will be lost. It may well fail because the Iraqis themselves fail. I want to give them every opportunity, consistent with American national securit interests, to achieve liberty. We can help others achieve liberty but ultimately we can only guarantee our own. Frankly, I'm having a difficult time trusting this administration or anyone currently in currently within the US government.

I think you may be right. We may have over estimated the threat from terrorists. My personal opinion is the biggest threats we face are from Russia and China.

B.Poster, I agree that there is still time left to turn this situation around. And I agree that we can't know for sure how things would have turned out had different decisions been made.

We MUST get this right. Iraq MUST eventually be made secure and demoacratic. If we fail, Americans really are going to be unsafe on foreign soil, and maybe even on our own as well.

Retired Spook

Thanks for the reply and for more information on the Spook Community. I had no idea that the Spook Community encompassed this much of an area!! I appreciate your service to our country!!

Well said, Mark!

"It is a war, you know? We've finally got governments both in America and Israel who understand that this is war."-MN

Yes...finally. I hope Israel destroys the terrorist Hamas government. According to FoxNews, Israel has already arrested 64 Hamas officials. Also according to FoxNews.com, "The Palestinian Interior Ministry is engulfed in flames. Israel Hits Palestinian Interior Ministry/ Warplanes pummel Gaza; Hamas thugs reportedly offer conditional release of kidnapped soldier." -That's a good start.

IDF confirmed that the 18 year old Israeli civilian was murdered right after he was kidnapped. Poor kid. Click link to see his picture.

Posted by: Retired Spook at June 30, 2006 08:33 AM

Wow, RS. Excellent analysis! I agree wholeheartedly.
***

"You want the problem to go away? Eliminate the problem. Pure and simple."-Posted by: Art Patscheck

Art, great post. I think the way to eliminate the problem is for Israel to destroy the terrorist Hamas government and to re-locate all of the "Palestinian" Muslims to Jordan, Egypt or some other Muslim country.

Freedom1,

Jordan and Egypt won't take them back. Especially Jordan, they have already had to fight once to force the PLO out, and save their country. I doubt King Abdullah, even with a Palestinian wife, would risk the problem rising up again. He has a vested interest in finding a way to have a Palestinian state created to keep his own country safe from the radicals.

"Jordan and Egypt won't take them back." by: kjstrouble

Ok. How about Syria or that Islamic paradise Saudi Arabia?

"Especially Jordan, they have already had to fight once to force the PLO out, and save their country." by: kjstrouble

/a very sarcastic LOL.