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06/25/2003 Archived Entry: "Friedman gets one right."
Freidman gets one right.
I've come to view Tom Friedman as a man who, while probably better-informed in Middle East matters than most, is one of the most blatant Bush apologists in print since the war ended. His assertions that finding mass graves excuses lack of WMD, that we invaded Iraq 'because we could,' just seemed like the ravings of someone who realized he was wrong and was looking for the best justification for his error.
Well, today he makes sense. Have the scales fallen from his eyes, at last?
Let's start with the biggest analytical failure. The Bush Pentagon went into this war assuming that it could decapitate the Iraqi army, bureaucracy and police force, remove the Saddam loyalists and then basically run Iraq through the rump army, bureaucracy and police.Wrong. What happened instead was that they all collapsed, leaving a security and administrative vacuum, which the U.S. military was utterly unprepared to fill. The U.S. forces arrived in Iraq with far too few military police and civilian affairs officers to run the country. As a result, the only way U.S. troops could stop the massive looting was by doing the only thing they knew how: shooting people. Since they didn't want to do that, and since Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld seemed to believe that a little looting was O.K., so that Iraqis could let off steam ("stuff happens"), Iraqi government infrastructure, oil equipment and even nuclear research sites were just stripped bare. As a result, we are not just starting at zero in Iraq. We are starting below zero. (How the Pentagon could have failed to secure the known nuclear sites is unbelievable.)
Anyone familiar with NATO operations in Bosnia and Kosovo should have understood that we needed two armies for this invasion. The first was the fighting force that would kill Saddam's regime, and the second, following right behind it, a force of military police, civilian affairs officers, aid groups and public affairs teams to get our message across. The Pentagon brilliantly prepared the first force, but not the second.
So, you get incidents like the one last week, where hungry Iraqi soldiers, protesting for back pay, get shot at by U.S. troops — a great way to win friends — because our troops are unprepared for crowd control, a job for M.P.'s. Most of the police and M.P.'s we send into nation-building are reserves, and there was already a shortage — something the Pentagon should have seen and rectified by reconfiguring our force structure.
He still refuses to admit he was wrong on WMD, but this is a start.
Replies: 2 people speak up
He also seemed (to me at least) to be trying to (s)pin the failure on the Pentagon, not the Executive Branch. It wasn't the Pentagon who was underprepared - it was Don Rumsfeldo and the Badminstration who pressured the military into this.
Sounds like the same old Lying Media Nazi Whore kimchee to me...
Posted by (: Tom :) @ 06/25/2003 10:18 AM NY
"The Hornets' Nest"
- a short story by Metro99
One fine, sunny day the village idiot, a man named Simpleton George, is walking through the woods. He stops after noticing a large nest of hornets hanging from a tree branch about six feet off the ground. Becoming curious, George picks up a number of rocks and throws them at the nest. Though enraged, the hornets remain in their nest.
Feeling satisfied with himself, George picks up a small branch, walks a little closer to the nest, and starts hitting the nest with the branch. The hornets become furious, yet they still remain in their nest.
Simpleton George says to himself, “feels good!” Finally, George thinks, “gee, I wonder what would happen if I stick my face into that there hornets’ nest.”
And that is why Simpleton George is the village idiot.
The End
Posted by Metropolitan99 @ 06/25/2003 12:33 PM NY
