Comments on: Snap Back To Reality

By: Kilo

Kilo — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:54:44 +0000

“A dollar now buys only half as many Euros as it did when Bush was elected.”

You don’t want to be citing things like that as meaningful 5 months before a democrat is elected. Apart from the fact there’s a billion other factors outside the oval office, trust me, your economy’s gonna do a lot worse next year.

By: Kilo

Kilo — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:51:28 +0000

Actually, there is a circumstance. If the Republics retain power ….

Why not just say you’d like to dodge the point.
Meanwhile February draws closer still. Now I’m not entirely sure the change that ushers in won’t just be people then having to argue that “if McCain hadn’t been defeated by Obama then the republicans in power would have….”
You know, just like the change we saw with the house and senate.

By: Spencer Ackerman

Spencer Ackerman — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 22:45:17 +0000

Cool. I’ll check it out. Didn’t he already write that for TNR?

By: wigwam

wigwam — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:22:17 +0000

Our enemy’s state strategy for defeating us is not body count, which McCain says we’re winning, but economic attrition. “We will bankrupt them.” And, at the strategic level, we are losing. This war is costing $12B/month up front and five times that much in long-term obligations, e.g., interest and healthcare for wounded vets. And that burden is wrecking our economy. A dollar now buys only half as many Euros as it did when Bush was elected.

By: Jo Fish

Jo Fish — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:20:45 +0000

The fact that the administration was seemingly unaware of the fact that Iraq was not a monolitic country of “Ay-rabs” the vast majority of whom were not X-tian is borne out by Gentile’s essay. Hell, McVain can’t even keep the facts straight with respect to that small detail.

I suspect that the sentiment “the only good Arab is a Dead Arab” was expressed more than once in the Oval Office after 9/11, and it probably came from #1 and #2 themselves. They have never had any desire to understand the country and people they conquered… the just figured that with a large enough military hammer they’d eventually “win” whatever that means.

By: Ann in AZ

Ann in AZ — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:18:33 +0000

But for a few words, you could almost believe this post is about what is going on in America under the Bush Administration:

where ~~ministries~~ agencies operate by ~~sect~~ party affiliation and ideology rather than by function, sectarian partisan hatreds have gone well beyond the point where “hearts and minds” campaigns will dampen them,

By: CTuttle

CTuttle — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:17:19 +0000

You know there’s a certain irony to the fact that the man who wrote the ‘book’(FM) on COIN ops is in charge of the fiasco! Too bad he threw it out…!

By: Badwater

Badwater — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:08:30 +0000

Actually, there is a circumstance. If the Republics retain power and continue to reap great quantities of plunder, they will have no problem allowing the children of others to remain in Iraq for years to come.

By: tw3k

tw3k — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:06:41 +0000

But the expansion of the Occupied Territory is working!

By: jfelliott

jfelliott — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:05:47 +0000

Hi Spencer,

In the same issue of World Affairs, Robert Kagan has a… perhaps provocative is the best word… essay arguing that the Founding Fathers were essentially the first neoconservatives. I’d be interested in your thoughts on that.

-James F. Elliott