BlackFive

Reader and solid commenter Jordan notes:

I'd like to say Huber's piece was informative and insightful, but when he identified Gen. Petraeus as "Mark Petraeus"  I had to stop reading.

Just a reminder that the defeateds come in all flavors, even retired Navy. This is up at Daily Kos from a Jeff Huber, who used to fly E-2 Hawkeyes. Now he opines in that annoying know it all tone that far too many war opponents take when discussing the absolute debacle the Iraq War has been. Let's take a look. h/t reader Red

One is hard pressed to find anyone other than the administration and its cheerleading team who thinks Kagan's strategy has shown "some real prospect for success."  Attacks in Iraq during June 2007 reached the highest daily average seen since the end of "major hostilities" in May 2003.

Gee I seem to remember a certain Gen. Petraeus who said exactly that would happen as we pushed the bad guys and forced their hands. He fails to note that many of those attacks he bemoans led to piles of dead tangos. In a Q&A Petraeus said we don't do body counts, but that the numbers of dead bad guys in June was well into the hundreds. At the same time US casualties dropped 20 % each of the last two months, large parts of Baghdad are secure and what about Anbar and Diyala provinces. Mike Yon has been reporting that he has been unable to find any serious conflict for quite a while, and it's kinda hard to paint John Burns of the NY Times as an adminstration cheerleader.

According to Petraeus's latest latest projections, "sustainable security" won't be established in Iraq until summer of 2009, and the 2009 target date may be overly optimistic. 

So? Who in the world ever gave the idea that military tasks carried out during a war have to or even can happen in a couple of months? The fact that we have made mistakes and been in Iraq longer than anyone really wanted does not mean we should make decisions based on that alone. We need to decide if running now is better or worse than attempting to follow a new tactic that is showing signs of progress to everyone other than the defeateds. Huber is one of those so sure that things were lost before we even started that there is no way that W's failed war of global imperialist neo-con expansion can ever be salvaged.

Of political solutions, Kagan told the Committee "Political progress is something that follows the establishment of security, not something that causes it."  Anyone familiar with political philosophy is aware of Thomas Hobbes and his almost universally accepted assertion that order can only be achieved by a social compact that recognizes the authority of a sovereign political entity.  Lack of violence doesn't produce stable political institutions.  It's the other way around.  In the case of Iraq, the insurgent groups at war with each other are controlled by the very members of Parliament who can't arrive at a political solution, and as long as the politicians can't agree on anything, the insurgents will keep fighting. 

That is a ridiculous end run around Hobbes whole point and the dynamic between politics and conflict. Political solutions to armed conflicts occur when one side has prevailed or another has decided it is not willing to bear the cost.  As long as both parties to an armed conflict believe they capable of prevailing there is virtually no chance of a political compromise. In this case the question is will the insurgents, Shia and Sunni see our current operation as the last gasp of a defeated power, as Huber does, or will they see that they are unable to operate against us or the people if we clear, hold and hang out? The defeateds are perfectly fine letting the Iraqis have a bloody Civil War once we run away, I mean we had one and that turned out OK right? We have made demonstrable progress, to anyone willing to actually look, due to a change in leadership and strategy. Huber and the defeateds are heavily invested in the folly of this war and while I believe he truly thinks it can't be won, at this point he is not even looking at any part of the situaltion rationally or fairly. His takedown of Kagan was non-existent and if he landed any shots I missed them. Mostly he flailed about sissy slapping him in a superior tone I can't find any justification for.

And nobody in his right mind or otherwise believes that Bush changed his strategy and commanders for the reasons Kagan gave.  Bush canned his old strategy and commanders because the people of the United States voted his party out of power. 

Again, so? In reality it was a bit of both, but so what? I don't care why he did it, it was the right thing to do, and what worries Huber and the Kos Kidz is that Petraeus may screw the whole W is the worst President ever thing by winning the damn war in Iraq. That would totally suck for them eh?

Matt Sanchez made it to FOB Falcon, stomping grounds of pitiful fabulist Scotty Beauchamp. I think Beauchamp is in deep shite for OPSEC and other violations. Read Matt's bit.