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October 22, 2004
The Magic Numbers
On the season finale of 'Rescue Me' the chief of the fire station which is the center of the drama said that they sent 343 men to their deaths in the WTC to save 10,000. It's a reactive number. Nobody could say ahead of time how many firefighters lives were expendable in saving the lives they could. They were predisposed to do their job, certainly no matter what the cost, but with the deadly danger in mind. It's what they do.
Today, many critics of the president say that Iraq is a burning building about to collapse, and that he was foolish not to send in more. It's difficult to reconcile this criticism with that of the 'backdoor draft', but that's not the case Tom Friedman makes:
Conservatives profess to care deeply about the outcome in Iraq, but they sat silently for the last year as the situation there steadily deteriorated. Then they participated in a shameful effort to refocus the country's attention on what John Kerry did on the rivers of Vietnam 30 years ago, not on what George Bush and his team are doing on the rivers of Babylon today, where some 140,000 American lives are on the line. Is this what it means to be a conservative today?Had conservatives spoken up loudly a year ago and said what both of Mr. Bush's senior Iraq envoys, Jay Garner and Paul Bremer, have now said (and what many of us who believed in the importance of Iraq were saying) - that we never had enough troops to control Iraq's borders, keep the terrorists out, prevent looting and establish authority - the president might have changed course. Instead, they served as a Greek chorus, applauding Mr. Bush's missteps and mocking anyone who challenged them.
Conservatives have failed their own test of patriotism. In the end, it has been more important for them to defeat liberals than to get Iraq right. Had Democrats been running this war with the incompetence of Donald Rumsfeld & Friends, conservatives would have demanded their heads a year ago - and gotten them.
The fact of the matter is that this conservative had a number in mind at which point the war in Iraq had better be worth it. That number was roughly one 'Lynch Factor', which is about 3500. This magic number is about the number who died in the WTC and all those who had been lynched in this nation's darker days.
While I don't disagree that our nation's military might have been much better served with someone other than Rumsfeld in charge, I disagree that he has outspent his charge. As our military fatalities hover around 1200 at this moment in time in Iraq, I reckon we can double that before some parity is met. I know that it wasn't Saddam Hussein who flew the planes. I know that the theory of drawing terrorists into Iraq hasn't panned out. I know that Al Qaeda is still out there (although without 75% of its leadership, and OBL mysteriously quiet these days). And I know that there are two others remaining on the Axis of Evil who have yet to feel our swords.
But I also believe it's true that the 1200 American soldiers who died are part of the cost of 20 million appreciative Iraqi civilians who need their country rebuilt, even if the other 5 million are willing to muck up that process by any means necessary. I happen to believe in that equation with or without 9/11, and I always have. I'm one of the imperialists who would have liked to have seen us spend a little blood and treasure in Cote D'Ivoire when they were begging for it. That counts for Liberia on several occasions as well as many times for Sudan.
George W. Bush may be hunting the tiger with a blunderbuss, but it's easier to get new weapons to a man with a killer instinct, than it is to ge get the diplomat into the bush in the first place. America has blood and treasure to spare, quite frankly. And this is a just cause, as well as well-deserved payback. Call me back when we reach 2000.
Posted by mbowen at October 22, 2004 11:01 AM
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Comments
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Cobb said:
"George W. Bush may be hunting the tiger with a blunderbuss, but it's easier to get new weapons to a man with a killer instinct, than it is to ge get the diplomat into the bush in the first place."
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this isn't a dozens game or a bar fight. this is not a 'shooter' video game. it's real, live, blood and guts, heavy munitions, wmd, War. i think it'd be generally preferable to have a slow trigger finger. ideally, you want the war justifiable enough that you'd volunteer to head in yourself, if it wasn't for your light-reflecting dome.
kerry's actually been in the real, live trenches of a badly planned war before. both bush and cheney ducked it all. i think it safer to say that tho kerry might not have the same tiger-y bloodlust, he should have more motivation to ensure overwhelming force (to win the peace) than someone who has no real idea what warfare is all about.
Posted by: memer at October 22, 2004 12:45 PM
It's not the president's job to determine if a war is winnable, that's the job of the military itself. Nobody, but nobody in my lifetime made it to the Presidency based upon their military expertise. The last one to do that was Eisenhower. There is nothing in Kerry's war experience that better prepares him to be commander in chief. That's like saying flying jets makes you better suited to be the CEO of American Airlines than someone who has been CEO of United Airlines but never flew jets. In otherwords, grunt experience in the jungle doesn't cut it. That kind of micromanagement is what got Kennedy lost in the Bay of Pigs.
The Army is most responsible for the Army. So what you ought to be talking about is Rumsfeld firing generals for insubordination and them coming back saying I told you so. But the commanders in the field are not saying that they are completely unprepared for the threat of Iraq.
What Bush did say was that he didn't believe in nation building, and now he's doing it. Knock him for that, not because he can't load an M16.
Posted by: Cobb at October 22, 2004 08:13 PM
Mr. B;
I think the core fact that Friedman misses is that most conservatives I know don't really think the situation is Iraq is today any worse or any better than about what we expected. If anybody went into Iraq with blinders on, it would be the Left and the mainstream media, who haven't got a clue what's going on in-country outside the Baghdad Green Zone, even today.
I don't really see it being about body counts or any of that. Nor do, I think, "the boots on the ground" think so. Which is why I see as sophistry all of the "I support the troops" nonsense from the Left. That line of talk says to me that the speaker doesn't understand the nature of the mission. It's "pay any price, bear any burden" to assure that terrorism is removed from this earth.
If that means turning the Middle East on its head, greening it with liberty, watered with the blood of American patriots, then so be it.
Kerry doesn't get that. He thinks that lawyers and dilitantes in striped pants can solve the problem. He misses what one Hamas leader said, "We do not attack you to get you to give us something. We attack you to kill you."
M
Posted by: Mark Alger at October 23, 2004 07:45 PM
C, your response implies The Military is nearly always united and/or they only offer one route. I don't think that is true. I obviously don't have the inside scoop on how stuff works between the Pentagon and the White House, but I think there is a variety of opinion and strategies offered to the President.
If the way to defend the country was clear and obvious, there'd hardly be much need for an elected "commander-in-chief." Or mebbe you're suggesting he's there to rubberstamp whatever's put before him.
Bush's mindset determines his judgement and the path he chose. I put it to you that tho it's certainly no guarantee of wise decision-making, in a time of war, it is useful to have a President who knows first-hand something about it. Especially when the contrast is against someone who actively shirked the call to duty.
Bush's judgement re assessing the situation as it unfolded, bullheaded stubborness vs. firing incompetence and putting in folk with a different tack is sorely lacking. There is on reason to think Bush's mindset or process will change. I think it reasonable to assume it'll be more of the same.
Posted by: memer at October 25, 2004 03:41 PM