How many Friedmans left?

October 12, 2006

After three and a half years in Iraq, violence in Baghdad has now reached an “all-time high.”

The number of sectarian killings each month in Baghdad has more than tripled since February, and the violence has not slowed despite a major offensive in the capital.

Death squads killed 1,450 people in September, up from 450 in February, according to U.S. military statistics. In the first 10 days of October, death squads have killed about 770 Iraqis.

The increase in death squad killings reflects the level of religious warfare that is now the largest threat to security in Iraq.

Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a military spokesman, acknowledged violence in Baghdad is at an “all-time high” and said U.S. commanders, in coordination with their Iraqi counterparts, are continuing to adjust the security plan to try to reduce the violence.

In the worst months this year, sectarian killings averaged about 47 a day, according to the military statistics. So far this month, sectarian assassinations have claimed an average of 77 lives a day.

What’s more, in a seven-day period last week, U.S. troops in northwest Baghdad investigated 40 sectarian killings and collected 57 bodies, many of them mutilated or bearing signs of torture. I guess we’re lucky Iraqis are willing to “tolerate” all of this violence.

At this point, even the most patient observers are running out of Friedmans.

A commission formed to assess the Iraq war and recommend a new course has ruled out the prospect of victory for America, according to draft policy options shared with The New York Sun by commission officials.

Currently, the 10-member commission — headed by a secretary of state for President George H.W. Bush, James Baker — is considering two option papers, “Stability First” and “Redeploy and Contain,” both of which rule out any prospect of making Iraq a stable democracy in the near term.

That seems to be an increasingly common sentiment. Fareed Zakaria, for example, is done.

When Iraq’s current government was formed last April, after four months of bitter disputes, wrangling and paralysis, many voices in America and in Iraq said the next six months would be the crucial testing period. That was a fair expectation. It has now been almost six months, and what we have seen are bitter disputes, wrangling and paralysis. Meanwhile, the violence has gotten worse, sectarian tensions have risen steeply and ethnic cleansing is now in full swing. There is really no functioning government south of Kurdistan, only power vacuums that have been filled by factions, militias and strongmen. It is time to call an end to the tests, the six-month trials, the waiting and watching, and to recognize that the Iraqi government has failed. It is also time to face the terrible reality that America’s mission in Iraq has substantially failed. More waiting is unlikely to turn things around, nor will more troops.

Andrew Sullivan is just about done.

I’m not there yet and willing to give the military one last try, if Rumsfeld is fired and a serious new plan for regaining control is unveiled.

(Since Rumsfeld isn’t going to be fired and there will be no serious plan, I’d say Sullivan is just about there.)

Ralph Peters is willing to give it two more Friedmans, but he doesn’t seem to mean it.

Some Senate Republicans will apparently give it one more month — not to see progress that won’t come, but to announce their opposition to the president’s policy after the midterm elections.

Speaking of Senate Republicans, Sen. John Warner is willing to go with half a Friedman.

And in a surprising twist, Sen. Hillary Clinton apparently will commit to half a Friedman, but no more.

Sen. Hillary Clinton suggested yesterday the fight for Iraq could be lost in two to three months if President Bush doesn’t fire his war planners and change course now.
“What we’ve been doing is not working and we have maybe 60 to 90 days to try to put a different face on it and reverse it,” the New York Democrat said.

But she said there was no way the Bush team of Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would take the steps needed.

Is it me, or has the conventional wisdom officially shifted?

Yes. The worm has turned.

And if the Dems retake Congress in November they should seriously consider an impeachment investigation for this absolute and horrific cock-up.

Not of Bush, though–although he should be censored. But of the mastermind of this thing–the big Dick himself, Cheney. I think this would be much more palatable to the public AND a very useful tool for getting out the truth and for smacking down the neoconvicts for some time to come.

  • Three and half years puts us at the seventh Friedman of the war. Rumsfelds plan is taking a seventh Friedman stretch while our Iraqi counterparts are getting the seven Friedman itch. Bush, being a baseball man, doesn’t believe this contest will end after the ninth Friedman, but will go into extra Freidmans indefinitely until we can knock one out of the Iraqi park, or until umpire (the voters) calls the game in November of 2008.

  • bubba, not that impeachment isn’t more than justified, but i think the dems would be better advised to hold a series of fulbright-like hearings on iraq where an entire spectrum of voices – familiar to many of us who hover around blogs all day but not to the public – can actually help educate americans on the realities of iraq and begin to counter 4 years of bu(sh)it.

  • howard, have no problem with that. but i really do think that an eventual impeachment investigation of Cheney, as part of all that, would go a long way in geting out the truth and letting the rest of these idiots know that incompetence that costs thousands of lives does have a price and that those politicians primarily responsible will be held accountable.

  • There is sadly, only one Stablize solution to this war, which is to give up on a multi-party democracy in Iraq, vet every possible candidate and official of the Iraqi Government, and rule Iraq for years as a fiefdom of America. Which means a whole lot more troops and basically invoking martial law.

    Which, I note, was one thing the CPA did not do in Iraq. In Iraq, every family has its own AK-47. As if the NRA was trying to use the country as a laboratory of absolute gun rights.

    Nice to know the level of violence the NRA would tolerate for their idea of Freedom.

  • The White House agenda in Iraq has always, from day one, been concerned with a particular set of specific issues:

    1) Get the oil.
    2) Build superbases that protect the oil.
    3) Create a puppet government who allow the superbases that protect the oil to stay indefinitely.
    4) Eliminate or pacify opponents of the puppet government who allow the superbases that protect the oil indefinitely.
    5) Invade other countries to get more oil and more bases.

    They still cling to the fantasy that they can accomplish all of these goals if they just keep saying that everything is fine and everybody should just shut up about it.

    They will fail. The billions of dollars spent to build those superbases will be wasted and the U.S. military will be forced to abandon all of those installations eventually because the U.S. will simply not be able to sustain its presence in Iraq according to the original neocon plan.

    All those lives, all that money, up the spout.

    Unless they subvert each of the new federal regions individually. We better hope that doesn’t happen or we won’t be getting out of Iraq for a very long time.

  • Re #7 and the linked article.

    Nice to see another person get it right. Cheney first!

    Remember in “State of Denial”, the reason Cheney doesn’t want to let Rumsfeld go is that the heat would be on him next.

  • Some Senate Republicans will apparently give it one more month — not to see progress that won’t come, but to announce their opposition to the president’s policy after the midterm elections.

    The Iran-Contra story broke in a big way almost immediately after the mid-terms in Nov 1986 and Reagan was pretty much irrelevent after that. It wouldn’t be much of a surprise to see many Republicans on the Hill bail on Iraq as soon as the election is over in November regardless of which party wins. As soon as official “lame duckism” sets in it seems like the dam breaks and what was previously sacrosanct becomes immediately expendable in the new political climate.

  • I think the Dems should take full of advantage of the next two years. Impeach Cheney, condemn or impeach the Regal Moron, throw Rummy and Rice under a passing bus, set up a commission on war profiteering, penalize outsourcers, heavily tine those who exploit illegal labor, etc. Try to match the intensity and optimism of FDR’s first 100 days, particularly in the search for ideas to make this country productive and fair again.

    There’s an interesting demographic pattern going on at the moment (in historic terms) which makes this effort more than just an effort at good government (which doesn’t seem to interest anyone anymore). Many western nations have already undergone what demographers call their “demographic transition” . For millennia pre-industrial, agricultural nations had high rates of births matched by high rates of deaths (mostly from infant mortality). The result was very slow growth.

    When death-rates began to fall (mostly due to suddenly decreasing infant mortality, largely due to more protein in the average diet, but also influenced by public health measures and, a little, by improvements in medicine), there was a “population explosion” — fewer deaths while birth rates remained high (due to persistent rural beliefs about how many children a “moral” woman ought to have, in spite of the fact that most of those births lived past infancy to produce births of their own).

    When birth-rates at last began to fall (largely due to industrialization and urbanization, when children became an economic burden rather than an asset), the population explosion slowed until, in “mature” industrial societies (Europe, North America), births again nearly matched deaths and growth stagnated. At that point, what growth occurred was due more and more to immigration; without it there would actually be population decline.

    Nations which only recently took birth control seriously (Ireland, China, India, Indonesia) will be the beneficiaries — for a brief period, 2000-2040 — of having a relatively huge working-age population while having very low “dependency ratios” (children and old people, of non-working-age). Such nations can be highly competitive provided they take advantage of the provided opportunity to educate their young adults.

    As a side note, the United States has always had the advantage of a readily available immigrant workforce and a very good public education system. In recent yearsw it seems hell bent to toss away such resources. Our race hatred (which is the elephant in the GOP’s tent no one wants to acknowledge) and our lurches toward theocratic fertility (again, largely GOP-inspired, exemplified in their attitudes toward abortion and homosexuality) are two enormous weights to carry on our back into the coming economic struggles of the 21st century.

    Trouble is these demographic arguments (well-formed for almost a century now) are of no interest to those who take delight in getting quoted on the evening TeeVee news. Perhaps a rampage of impeachments and hearings on the heels of a Democratic victory next month can clear away the cobwebs enough for such fresh (and urgent) thought to have an impact. Or perhaps we’ll prefer to enjoy our future-blind prejudices concerning, e.g., racial inequality, freedom of choice and gay marriage. We wouldn’t be the first nation to pass up its historical opportunity.

  • Is it me, or has the conventional wisdom officially shifted?

    Well, the first mistake is to use the word “wisdom” in a post that includes the name “Friedman” without using a “lack of” before the word “wisdom.”

    IMHO, the reality of the mess Cheney and Co. have created is finally starting to sink in. And since months of speeches and “stay the course” rhetoric from Bush (and pretty much every other right winger) are not resonating with the people, expect them all to do what most politicians and pundits do:

    Change their tune to match the majority opinion, something they can’t do it now because it’ll piss off the base.

    But that’ll only happen after the elections in November. Mark my words: If the right gets its collective ass handed to it (please oh please oh please oh please), then you’ll see all kinds of GOPers break ranks and start to either denounce the war or give fewer Friedman’s before measuring success.

    Naturally, they won’t do it because it’s the right thing to do. They’ll do it to save their own hides — without control of Congress and with a lame-duck President, they could very well find themselves in investigation after investigation as the Dems expose all the corrupt crap this Congress has done (or at least I hope so).

    And getting on the good side of key Dems by saying the right thing may just keep some of their heads off the chopping block (figuratively speaking, of course).

    Of course, I could be wrong …

  • No Friedmans for you. No planning + Lies + Greed = Cluster f^ck of massive proportions.

    This little enterprise was doomed from the moment Shrubster said “Let’s go git us some oil, boys!” Right now I’d vote for anyone who had the balls to say: Bush trashed Iraq. We can withdraw and wait to deal with whoever clambers to the top when they run out of bullets and HEX, OR We can leave our soldiers in place and let them pay for his stupidity. If any one mentioned it would be evil to withdraw, I’d kiss ’em right on the lips (with some major exceptions). Iraq is screwed, ShrubCo screwed it. I hope they wind up being convicted of war crimes but Iraq will still be screwed no matter what happens to them.

    Don’t know if there is a neat, happy solution since the Guerilla war that ShrubCo poo-pooed at the start is rolling along quite nicely and such conflicts don’t lend themselves to the Hollywood ending MonkeyShines envisioned. I don’t know if more soldiers would make a difference at this point. (Especially since the Army lowered it’s standards to meet the all mighty recruitment goal.) Can foreign soldiers do much during a civil war? (Vietnam.) All I know is it’s time for the folks in charge to stop singing the sun’ll come out, tomorrow! like a hunger-crazed orphan.

    And at the very least I’d like to see wall sized posters of Bush plastered all over Iraq with the words “This disaster brought to you by this smug bastard” underneath his smirking mug. At least people will know who to blame when the Rethugs start whining it’s Bill Clinton’s fault.

  • “Is it me, or has the conventional wisdom officially shifted?” — CB

    Don’t know about conventional wisdom shifting; looks more like rats jumping a sinking ship, to me.

    “[…] expect them all to do what most politicians and pundits do:
    Change their tune to match the majority opinion, something they can’t do it now because it’ll piss off the base.”– Unholy Moses, @12

    You can change the tune, you can change the key… But, if you’re ball-less, your pitch will remain the same; you’ll still sound like a mosquito buzzin’. And I’m not so sure that they’ll wait to jump ship till after the elections, either. Their Quaeda is already pissed off and is going to be madder once Kuo’s book gets broader recognition. They may not join the majority at the polls, but they’re likely to stay home and sulk (I’ll take them cookies if they promise to do so ).

    So, self-preservation instinct would dictate that one should ditch the Quaeda and try to make gentle advances towards the majority *now*, rather than later. And it seems that some of the GOP pols are doing just that. They’re inching away from Mr Bu..$h.. as fast as they think they can get away with. Official websites are being re-edited as we speak 🙂

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