That's not the problem. The problem people trying to imply that any good news coming out of Iraq is because "we were right all along", which is BS. The Admin was wrong all along. If Iraq "turns out ok" it would be ultimate BS to claim the admin was responsible for it.




Ahk

Yeah, it's like trying to kill the roaches in a house by sending a bunch of guys in with hammers. Eventually, they found out that Raid works better for the roaches and started gluing things back together...but they still smashed up the fucking house.

No that's not what I said. The generals and the Iraqis get the credit and the admin gets the blame. For 2-3 years they didnt listen to a word the generals said, often dismissed them if they said something they didn't like, (like asking for more troops), and when they finally did start listening that's when things started to turn around. The reason Iraq seems to be settling down is because of the Iraqis themselves and because of the Generals. It is not because of the plans/programs and outright delusional thinking that the mission in Iraq started with. As I said from the American standpoint it is the Generals, not the deluded thinking of the Bush admin that is working here. That and the Iraqis themselves.

As I siad, all civil conflicts or racial strife do eventually calm down and peter out. Do we credit the Admin for this very basic sociological truth? The only thing you can credit the Admin with at this point is serendipity. I would give credit for 'staying the course', but realistically what else were they going to do?

Are you saying neue regel that you haven't noticed a change ever since Rumsfeld was out, and since about a year before the surge that now instead of the Admin telling the Generals what's-what and crapping on them any time they say something the admin doesn't like, now the generals doing the telling and the admin is finally doing some listening. Boom! and low and behold it starting to work. It was the same thing in Afghanistan. They tried to tell the generals it was all wrapped up there but the generals knew better. Now the Admin keeps their hands out of it. Their dreamy dream delusions of just walking into Iraq and changing everything in 6 months is a long forgotten memory to some of you.

Or are you trying to say that assuming the troops would be greeted as heroes or implementing Abu Garib or assigning a 22-year old to be the Iraqi Minister of the Interior is what led us to the timidly positive results we are seeing today? Even the surge wasn't the Admin's idea. The generals were demending more troops for a year before they got 'em.

We can kick this around all day but imagine if a city is being devistated by a hurricane and their plan is to do nothing and let it blow over. Well naturally the hurricane will blow over eventually but do we credit the administration for that?

The Admins original plan failed. Simple as that and the generals are pulling their collective ass outta the fire now. Hasn't been the first time...the last time was Clinton. Did the Admin tell all of you that the plan was to hang out in Iraq for 5 years of civil violence and car bombs and dead coaltion soldiers until such time as they deem it alright to throw in the "surge' of troops the generals were screaming for from day one? Were they just biding their time with a fake plan until the timing was right to pull it all out of the bag with someone elses ideas? No. They had a plan and it failed and they had no idea what else to do until they started really listening to even their own people.


Cheers Neue,
Ahk

I have and it's probably more than fair to say he didn't do a good job and gave Bush bad advice from the start. Putting faith in Rumsfeld has proven a bad choice, too.