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Wednesday, November 1, 2006

Be Careful With the Details of the War

posted by on November 1 at 10:18 AM

Whoops! As the Morning News noted, a classified military PowerPoint slide, complete with handy color-coded chart, has turned up in New York Times. Follow the arrows to “chaos” in Iraq…

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1

you know, this smells like rove somehow.

i don't see any indication in the Times article on how this was obtained, but i wouldn't be surprised if they (the GOP spinners) pull a dan rather on this and blame it on the dems.

might be something to keep an eye on...

Posted by chops | November 1, 2006 11:02 AM
2

I'm reading Cobra II, and it is confirming my worst fears: Iraq was a PowerPoint war. At one point a colonel says of Rumsfeld's postwar planning, which he insisted on running entirely himself, was "only PowerPoint deep". Seven slides, that's what they had for Phase IV (post-Saddam). They had a modest budget but they never really spent it on anything. They just weren't interested in afterwards. Well, they sure as motherfucking hell are interested now. We've just abandoned a US soldier to the militias that kidnapped him, for the first time just about ever.

Donald Rumsfeld belongs in prison.

Posted by Fnarf | November 1, 2006 11:09 AM
3

Step 1: Overthrow Saddam


Step 2: ???


Step 3: Profit!

Posted by Butters | November 1, 2006 11:13 AM
4

The only ways to "win" this war are beyond even the most feverish of republicans.

We'd have to go the 19th Century British route. Arm and train the Pushtun from Afganistan and send them to Iraq. Arm and train the Iraqi Sunni and send them to Aftganistan. Set up a puppet Monarchy in both countries with a hand-picked king, give him everything of value in the each country respectively and make sure he pays tribute. Sounds a lot like where we started in this mess...

Or take the more modern tact, and start cracking out the Neutron bombs until there are too few people left to provide a meaningful resistance to our extraction of the oil.

We're either all in or out. I never liked this Iraq war, far before it was fashionable to be publicly against it. For those who insist on sticking around, I say it's time to commit to the heart of darkness or get out.

Posted by golob | November 1, 2006 11:51 AM
5

I put the odds of Saddam taking power again in a rump state in the Sunni Triangle at about 30% and rising. I bet he outlives George Senior.

Posted by Fnarf | November 1, 2006 12:14 PM
6

I'm with Fnaf. Saddam has a good chance of rising again.

Posted by ahura | November 1, 2006 12:29 PM
7

We should hope for Saddam again.

The misery we've created for ourselves and the region is going to be historic.

A total bloodbath doesn't even fully encompass what is right around the corner.

We have a lot of right winger's here today. For anyone who wants to stay in Iraq, what is your plan? How should we achieve victory?

Posted by golob | November 1, 2006 12:30 PM
8

Butters,

I believe there was in fact a Step 2: "be greeted as liberators and have flowers strewn at our feet".

Posted by COMTE | November 1, 2006 1:03 PM
9

What was Bill O'Reilly's out-of-his-ass estimate about how many Iraqis Saddam killed in his 20-some-odd-year reign of terror? 300 to 400,000?

Now this latest estimate comes out saying in the last 4 years of American occupation, we've brought early deaths to 650,000.

How are we better than Saddam again?

Posted by david | November 1, 2006 1:42 PM
10

The GOP was upset because Saddam killed 300-400,000 people. They weren't mad about him killing so many people, but at how inefficiently he did so. It took him nearly 30 years to kill that many people! Americans can work 10 times that quickly at killing Iraqis! Thus, they had to remove him from power. Some jobs you just can't outsource...

Posted by him | November 1, 2006 2:36 PM
11

That graphic has no scale.

Are they measuring chaos in Rumsfelds or Kilo-Rumsfelds or the old Kissingers? Is it Rumsfelds per day, per week, or what? Is it on a logarithmic scale?

If they don't tell you what their measuring the graph is meaningless.

Posted by elenchos | November 1, 2006 3:28 PM
12

Um, Saddam killed a hell of a lot more than 300,000 people.

Posted by Fnarf | November 1, 2006 6:19 PM

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