The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Tom West:

Would one simple reason for requiring paper mail submissions be to simply cut down on the number of submissions?

Forcing a mail submission requires an investment on the part of the writer, and I cannot help but think that the correlation between writers willing to invest in their work and the quality of the work is positive. Given the cost of evaluating submissions, any process that decreases the number of submissions while increasing overall quality (even at the cost of possibly losing a few quality submissions) might well be considered worth it.

Of course, for writers who have proven the quality of their submissions, such a barrier would not be beneficial.

No. But the problem is, we can't stop it, without putting many, many more troops in there, and they would have to stay for decades

Agreed. I don't think the political will exists to double the number of troops and have a mission that lasts for decades. So we're stuck with a staus quo that sucks.

The Iraqis are going to have to stop it.

It's just opinion here, but it sounds an awful lot like police officers saying "there is no way the police can handle the crime in the ghetto. We're leaving and it's up to you to solve the problem." The people who are getting killed aren't the problem, they're the victims. It feels (emphasize *feels*) to me like we're handing the peaceful majority over to the tender mercies of the those who want a civil war and mass slaughter.

You have yet to make even the slightest effort to try to justify your resolute conviction that US involvement will decrease the chance of mass slaughter.

Okay, it's pretty clear I didn't understand your question.

Looking at it now, there are three possible meaning, and I assumed the first.

(1) That the US involvement will decrease the chance of mass slaughter right now.

Um, I'm sort of assuming that 120,000 troops makes it pretty hard to fight an all-out war. Is this not a given? I didn't justify it because I assumed it's pretty obvious that the massive civil war can't really happen at the moment. (And there's a difference between the artial flow we're seeing now and a Rwanda-lite that's the worst case scenario.)

I assumed the first meaning and thought the answer was obvious.

However, given your reaction perhaps you meant

(2) that over a 20 year occupation, more will die than in a year of utter violence.

Now that's a more interesting take, and one I missed in the first reading.

From a moral culpability stand point, it's easier to accept the long term occupation, even at the cost of more deaths because we're essentially devoting significant effort into trying to stop the bloodshed, even if it is misdirected.

(3) that America can't stay forever, and the risk of major havoc when we leave grows the longer we stay.

The obvious answer to that it that it is America's moral obligation is to stay until such time as the risk is minimal, no matter how long that takes.

It's the holding up the wall dilemma, and you're right, there's every possibility that the wall won't fall if we leave now, the wall is falling apart brick by brick and there won't *be* any wall in 20 years, and that the wall gets less stable the longer we're holding it up.

And yet, I find that I am trapped in this course, hoping for a miracle that will never come because I cannot accept that there is nothing we can do. That the best we can do is look on and hope that those who are pushing for slaughter do not prevail. That all we can do is pray, and if hundreds of thousands are slaughtered, shake our heads sadly and say "we tried".

I suspect it's the same impulse that can't accept that Rwanda and Darfur were done deals that could not be prevented. Even as we fail, and the costs, moral and economic pile up, I cannot accept that America is powerless to prevent such tragedy.

It's not resolute intent, it's desperation.

Then you are condemning Iraqis and Americans alike to a known escalation of maiming, torture, and death in order to assuage your conscience about a hypothetical.

Agreed, my current preferred course of action *is* condemning thousands to death. But it's also a *hell* of a hypothetical. We've just condemned Rumsfeld because he chose to ignore the possibility of an insurgency. Are we to ignore the possibility of mass (and I mean *mass*) slaughter?

The fact that I have yet to hear *one* person advocating withdrawal even admit the *possibility* of attempted genocide in our absence is highly disturbing.

I think the hypothetical *must* be addressed before one can morally withdraw, even if addressing it is simply admitting responsibility for the mass slaughter that might occur.

I've debated this in person with one man who claimed that we could not possibly countenance
the possibility of genocide in advance because otherwise we couldn't withdraw. I found the mirror image irony (A Rumsfeld who could not possibly countenance the possibility of an insurgency because it would make an invasion impossible), to be horrifying.

We've already had one administration that refused to take responsibility or acknowledge all the possible outcomes of their actions. I don't think it's a practice that should continue, no matter how hard it is to admit that that the worst case is very bad indeed.

There's got to be at least *one* side that is willing to accept responsibility for their actions, however unasked, unwanted and unfair the initial conditions.

Okay, I'm weak. And if you're kind, Mr. London, you'll do me the favor of ignoring this post.

First, given your vitriolic response to monkeys (at least those who have the temerity to disagree with you), you must be interesting company at the zoo. :-)

More seriously, you seem to be equating a disbelief in evolution or a disbelief in (I assume you mean human-caused) global warming with monkey-dom.

Do you believe monkeys should have the right to vote?

Given that the intersection of people who believe in evolution, people who believe in human-caused global warming, and people who believe Rumsfeld should resign (a proxy for a lot of beliefs about Rumsfeld) is less than 50%, the obvious question is...

Do you believe that the people of the USA are fit to elect their own government?

And then we ask the Iraqis: what do we have -- not counting our soldiers, because we won't send them back -- that you can use?

I'm worried that for the Iraqi on the street the answer might be "security from the upcoming civil war". I'd guess (and it's a complete guess), given people as a whole, that <1% actually want war.

First subquestion is: do I think that the US should annex Iraq or treat it as a permanent client state. Answer: no. And I think that's a fairly common (though not universal) opinion. So we're really talking about when we should get out of Iraq, not if.

Sorry, I'd assumed that was a given.

Second subquestion: What does it mean for Iraq to be in a civil war? What does "civil war" mean, anyway? Based on Rumsfeld's track record, I favor the comment (I forget where I read it) that he won't admit there's a civil war until one of the insurgent leaders is Stonewall Al-Jackson.

We can use whatever term we like for the present conflict and the future one. My concern is we'd be looking at hundreds of thousands to millions of deaths. (Not that we will, but that's my fear.) There seem to be a number of agitators (mostly working "for" the Sunni side) that are trying to push a move towards genocide (of the Sunni side). I'd really hate for the US to end up being facilitators of (attempted) genocide.

Third subquestion: Will the US occupation improve things in Iraq?

I'd say my position (in my case) is one of fear. The current position is *bad*, but the alternate position *could be* catastrophic. And I think we can agree that there's no consensus as to what happens if the US pulls out soon. So, it's not so much cutting the board until it's long enough, as it is holding the wall up. Letting go has a distinct risk that we're looking at a nightmare. And a good possibility that they fix the problem themselves.

But if there *is* a genocidal outcome, what's the US's role? Intervention? Offering a home to the displaced Sunni's?

"you break it, you bought it"

I consider the phrase shorthand for "a moral responsibility to build a peaceful government that was significantly better than the one you just destroyed."

So, back to my original question. If we pull out, what do we owe the Iraqis? If they form a peaceful government, then it's easy. If there's an out-and-out genocidal civil war, what is our moral obligation to the Iraqis? Being unable to answer that question to my own satisfaction, I'm (currently) not comfortable advocating for a total withdrawal.

And unlike Mr. Rumsfeld, I'm unwilling to make big changes until I've got answers that I can accept to all significantly probably outcomes. (And yes, perhaps the answer to the hard one is "they just die..." - but I'm not there yet.)

Mr. Yuggoth,

Hmm... he's worried about post-hostilities control in an an area rife with ethnic tension to maintain a safe and secure environment. And he's concerned, for some strange reason, with ministering to the civilian population.

nnnnn... Okay.

I surrender the point. I'd read the post you mentioned, and upon re-reading two or three more times, I'll concede that while he didn't use the magic word, and he didn't specify that there would be difficulties per se, it doesn't take *too* much to read between the lines, and that Rumsfeld should not be able to take the out of "noone predicted the insurgency".

I still don't think it's a strong enough charge to use amongst the right-wingers, were you need a smoking gun, not simply a recently fired one.

Going off-topic, (and feel free to ignore this if time and space are unavailable) one of your URLs made a fairly compelling case for the USA getting out of Iraq. If you favor such a course, what do you think is America's moral obligation to Iraq vis-a-vis the likely civil war? Does it have any?

While opposing the initial entrance into the war, I've been part of the "you broke it, you bought it" faction, which means we have a moral duty to help prevent the deterioration as much as possible. If it is turning out that the US is actually incapable of preventing the oncoming catastrophe, then I'm curious as to what you think we owe the Iraqis for having busted their country, such as it was.

Mr. London, what can I say? I'm sorry that I think the points you are making, while accurate, are not appropos to the original topic. Shinseki's numbers were almost certainly closer to the mark, but we'll never know because we didn't even use the troops we had. Your comments on Rumsfeld's attempts to close down debate, while accurate, are also off the mark with respect the original topic. If he succeeded, then he wouldn't have heard anyone predicting the insurgency, and his original claim stands (or the gist of it anyway).

Anyway, further argument is moot. I concede the point. Thank you for bringing Shinseki into the discussion. I certainly learned a little more.

As for the personal atacks,
(1) if they were a product of upset or annoyance because I failed to comprehend your points, my sincere apologies. I don't mean to cause anyone distress. Real life disagreements are rarely hashed out in a single post.
(2) if they were an attempt to bully me into agreement, my sympathies.
(3) if they were an attempt to curry favour with an in-group by attacking the outsider, then I hope you've underestimated the readership of the blog.
(4) if they were wit, then I can only hope the humor succeeded with others...

Mr. West: It appears to me that one difference between you and Ms. Lieberman is that she believes that there are moral values higher than civility. It seems to me that you find her rudeness toward you more disturbing than the unnecessary death and destruction wreaked by the US in Iraq - and there we're going to have to agree to disagree.

Oh get real. My posting wasn't about the unnecessary death and destruction in Iraq. It was disputing the supporting evidence made by a claim in the topic header. If one cannot distinguish between the two, it makes it seem unlikely that one can cogently defend the suite of positions involved in Iraq.

Closer to my heart, I find the inability to muzzle one's outrage enough to engage in civil discourse to be an example of choosing to satisfy one's own emotional urges over a course of action that will (in some miniscule fashion) influence events in the direction that one wants to go.

It's like flinging a rock at Donald Rumsfeld's head. The tosser might feel good, but they've just cost their putative side 500,000 votes. I do consider it a form of selfishness. (My feelings are more important than the cause I claim to espouse.)

Now agreed that the attacks in the forum are an example of the above write very small indeed, but the principle is the same.

What is even more galling is that this is exactly how the right wing (apparently accurately) perceives us. Unable to defend our opinions with logic. Excluding anyone who doesn't already toe the party line, etc., etc.

I mostly comment in the right-wing boards because I disagree with 90% of what they say and thus have something meaningful to add. I force them to defend their points, and often enough they can't. Other times it comes down to fundamental differences. I have yet to be assailed in the same manner that I have here, and I can guarantee that my attacks are much more widespread there.

I may be over reacting, but the fact that one of my few posting on this part of blogosphere immediately brought a personal attack made me angry. Angry that some of the sharpest minds around are doing their best to betray their cause.

As for why I attack anything that I perceive as an unsupported attack? Because I don't believe in letting in the opposition discover one's weaknesses. Given that there are a plethora (geez, throw a dart and you can hardly miss) of ways to attack the current administration, choosing one that is difficult to support (that the insurgency was anticipated), seems pretty iffy, especially since in general you are judged by the strength of your *weakest* argument. (You lose credibility for each unsupported claim one makes.)

I certainly don't begrudge the topic being posted. But when one points out a weakness in the assertion, the appropriate responses are to either provide supporting evidence or at worst ignore it. (It's pretty rare in the blogosphere to have someone actually concede a point.) To be attacked *and* fail to bring up supporting evidence seems... weak.

Now, I speculate that you would have wanted to civilly agree that a lot of people had a lot of opinions about whether or not there had been any ethnic conflicts in Iraq, or whether or not Iraq's holy cities were holy cities of Islam or not. In my opinion, the proper response is to ask for Wolfowitz's resignation and then burn out whatever stupid he infected the organization with.

:-). I think we can agree that in any competent administration Don Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz would be *long* gone.

Even if that hurts someone's feelings.

One would hope. However, I'd expect the opposition to civilly bid him Adieu.

The problem with failing to treat one's adversaries with respect is that it makes it incredibly difficult to recruit one's adversaries former followers. You're forcing not only to admit that they were wrong, but that they were stupid for *ever* following. Getting the majority of Americans to admit that they were stupid is, let us say, a "challenging" task. And an unnecessary one, if one can keep one's loathing for the opposition on a short, private leash.

And thank you for the links. They were most informative. And not even any abuse :-). Much appreciated.

And because two generals with a couple decades experience a piece can't explain 40 years of collective wisdom to your sorry ass, you disbelieve?

Look, if you (or in this case the topic poster) are making attacks, it is incumbent upon you to have decent supporting evidence. The 400,000 figure is *only* relevant here if Shineski was anticipating an insurgency. If you cannot provide some backing evidence that this is the case, then the Shineski's figure is irrelevant to my challenge of the original topic's assertion.

You can claim Rumsfeld beats his dog, but if all you have for proof is that his dog limps and that he doesn't like animals, I'll call you on it.

If you want to defend the original post by saying that while we don't have any direct evidence, ignoring a General's advice that there *will* be an insurgency is well within Rumsfeld's character, I'll agree.

But don't pretend that you have an airtight case when all you have is circumstantial evidence, and then add personal attacks to the defence. It makes you look far more desperate than you have any cause to be.

Ms. Lieberman. Okay, I lied - I'll reply.

Look, I think we're talking past each other. I'm in *complete* agreement with just about everything you've said. In fact, there's no question in my mind that 500,000 troops would have failed because the US army didn't even attempt to use the troops that it *did* have to stop the looting.

Your arguments are cogent and correct. (Well except for Berlin. The Soviets chose the *other* path for insuring that there was no resistence...)

My central thesis about this topic *is* a little box, but again we're in agreement about the whole system (i.e. the American post-war program was handled incompetently). However, the topic was a specific point, and one that I disagreed with.

As for language, I've worked with the military enough to be aware of the language of the field. This is not the field. As a public forum, you are going "on air", which means that it is usual to temper one's vocabulary for the least common denominator.

My assumption that in such a forum, profanity is associated with upset, which is certainly not my intent, especially since my point is not a large one in the greater scheme of things.

Mr. London,

Obviously, Mr. West, you didn't want to find the information.

Actually, I *did* find the information. It didn't answer my question about where those numbers came from, and I would consider that central to my point about Rumsfeld's choice to ignore them.

Off topic here, but a little more disturbingly, is the attitude that seems to exist towards anyone willing to debate any point brought up here, and one I find deeply pernicious.

Any public forum such as a blog is an attempt to influence others, to communicate ideas. When contempt is heaped upon any who disagree, it makes it clear that one is not interested in communication or seeing the furtherance of one's ideas, but actually attempting to shut others out. Even worse, it acts to drive people back to the camps from whence they came.

In other words, I consider such reactions to be a disservice to the ideas and concepts that are espoused here. Since I agree with a great majority of them, it rather irks me to find a bunch of like-minded people working against their success.

Once again, the assumption of malice instead of stupidity (in this case my own) does one's cause harm.

Mr. London, having googled for the articles, I think you'll find General Shinseki somewhat vaguer, except when pressed. He didn't have a crystal ball either, although he obviously was closer to the truth than Rumsfeld. However, both were, at best, guestimates. (And there was tremendous variance in the estimates. Quite a number of fairly knowledgable people were pulling for 70-100K soldiers (!)). I'll also point out that we have no way of knowing whether Shinseki was accurate. There's a good chance (especially given how badly post war operations were run) that 400,000 troops would not be sufficient either.

Secondly, to determine whether he actually disagreed with Rumsfeld, he'd have to be willing to justify his numbers. 400K could mean (1) we need 400K to prevent a 10% chance of an insurgency breaking out or (2) we need 400K because that's the only way we'll survive the insurgency that *will* occur or (3) if we don't have 400K, then there will be an insurgency.

If he honestly felt either (2) or (3) (i.e. that the operation was doomed without the 400K force level), then he should have resigned immediately. Far more likely is that he was guessing with the rest of us, and felt 400K would place the odds far more in our favor.

Remember, we could also criticize Rumsfeld for cancelling the Crusader artillery system that Shinseki pulled hard for. Was Rumsfeld equally foolish for turning that down as well, given it was supported by the one person who should absolutely know whether it's a necessity or not? I'll also point out that I had a lot of sympathy for Clinton when he tried to ignore the advice of his Chief of Staff on certain military policies.

Again, there's lots of guesses here, and the fact is that Rumsfeld's guess was wrong. But Paula Lieberman's point oddly enough leads to the possibility that Rumsfeld *might* have been right about required force levels if he had been competent about post war operations.

As for attributing the motivations for war to (essentially) pure evil, I'd be very careful not to attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity (or perhaps more accurately, wrong-headedness). Doing so is simply a gift to those whose ideas and policies you would contest.

Ms. Lieberman, since this is not a topic you can address without profanity and personal attacks, I'll let it rest. While you bring up some interesting points, I don't think it is in either of our interests to exchange viewpoints on a subject that is too close to you personally for you to be able to do so civilly.

I cede this topic to you.

A United States that tortures its prisoners, spies on its citizens, and starts preemptive wars starts yet another war against yet another Middle Eastern state, going it alone because not even Tony Blair can muster up the support to follow him.

I'm not certain that an invasion of Iran (say under a Democrat administration) would have to include the torture and the spying. But you're absolutely right about the economic and moral costs.

My nightmare scenario would be 30 rather than 10 years down the road. Even if Iran didn't have ICBM's, it would be an Iranian theocracy staring defeat by popular revolt in the face, and having it launch 20-30 missiles at Russia and China...

*Then* the 150-500 missiles hit the USA courtesy of automatic reactions.

However, I'd certainly say that I'd be willing to risk the chance of that happening (0.1%, 1%, 5%?) against the certain costs of an invasion.

Luckily, it's not my problem. It's this and the next administration's.

Anybody who refuses to do the sort of planning and carrying out of administrative operations

Ms. Lieberman, the topic was about the predictions for a post-war insurgency, and my comments were directed to that. While the lack of post-war planning seems somewhere between odd and incompetent, it was beyond the scope of my comment.

To use a World War II analogy, the Allies were certainly aware of the possibility of post-war German resistance, especially in the South. However, they chose not to plan based on the possibility. (i.e. they didn't send every male German into a concentration camp, and rejected various other end-of-war proposals.) If resistance had occurred, would it have been proof of incompetence (even though others were predicting it)?

The post-war conduct of the campaign has been a fiasco, but irrelevant to my argument that you cannot predict outcomes in war (or in peace for that matter) and failing to do so is not grounds for claims of incompetence. Failing to adapt (or in your argument, failing to take initiatives that might have prevented the insurgency) is proof of incompetence. In that we are agreement.

I'm not certain the personal attack adds much to your argument, especially when your argument wasn't against the point I was trying to make.

As an addendum: While people might criticize Rumsfeld for not buying insurance in Iraq, I should point out possibility of war with Iran would be an example of buying insurance.

There is some chance that America will one day face a nuclear strike as a consequence of Iran getting the bomb. No-one can realistically say what that chance is, but it is certainly greater than zero.

So, is the cost of insurance against this possibility (invading Iran) worth it? We can be pretty certain the economic cost alone would be catastrophic, but how much is the insurance worth?

A decision that I'm glad I don't have to make. (Think about it, you either have a war and plunge the world into a catastrophic depression causing untold misery to millions or billions, or you don't, in which case you spend the rest of your days wondering if you've doomed the world to nuclear annihilation in 30 years... Yick.)

Not to excuse Mr. Rumsfeld, but I think that people here overestimate the ability of anyone to predict what happens in war.

(Of course some people predicted exactly what happened. So will enough people throwing darts...)

Instead you deal with probability and trade-off.

General Shinseki wasn't "correct". 400,000 troops would have not have guaranteed success, simply made it much more likely. But the *cost* of placing 400,000 troops would have been guaranteed to be extremely heavy.

Rumsfeld chose a much more modest and affordable option, but one that had a correspondingly higher chance of failure. Remember there was no guarantee that the initial campaign would go well with the force levels he chose. He won that gamble. He lost the post-war one.

Could he have bought more insurance in the form of more troops? Absolutely. But the tradeoff would have been the guaranteed misery (in the short or long term) that the extra spending would cost Americans; misery that would be wasted in the event that it was not necessary.

As the Crooked Timber people have said, war is an inherently unpredictable beast. Hence you only go to war when absolutely necessary.

I don't consider Rumsfeld incompetent for failing to anticipate the aftermath. He felt the cost of insurance too great for the risk. Instead, I consider him incompetent for his conduct of the troops he did have, and for failing to change his strategy when the reality of the insurgency became obvious.

Two points:

[cynical mode on] I'm not so certain that a draft is in the offing. Larger numbers of soldiers in Iraq are probably a precondition for victory (if, in fact, it can be achieved at all). Had Iraq turned into an out-and-out victory, I suspect that GWB would be toast right now. He *needed* those votes that felt that only he could successfully prosecute the war. The Iraq war is perfect for the Republicans. Not so many American deaths as to cause massive outrage, not so few as to become a non-issue. Why endanger conditions by winning? [cynical mode off]

More realistically, I suspect the Iraq war is fairly widely supported only because the real pain (to Americans) is felt only by a select few. Spread the pain (via draft, or horror!, a tax increase to actually *pay* for the war) and lose the election.

Secondly, if the current "voters vote on values, not policy" meme is true, I'm not certain how the Democrats are to ever gain victory. If the meme is valid, then what you *do* doesn't really matter (short of total catastrophe). If you can convey being more pro-God, pro-Gun, anti-Gay, etc., then you're well on your way to victory. To me, that's the depressing story.

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