tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post7512057689715867554..comments2024-01-09T15:03:54.986-05:00Comments on Wolf Howling: The NYT Comes Out FlingingGWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-44869718515426905132008-09-15T17:03:00.000-04:002008-09-15T17:03:00.000-04:00In war, often times the deficiencies and problems ...In war, often times the deficiencies and problems the enemy experiences is not due so much to their own incompetency as it is due to friendly action.<BR/><BR/>When enemy actions become more and more constrained, their efficiency begins to fall. They no longer have the optimally best alternatives. Why? Because those options were taken away in order to weaken them.<BR/><BR/>Given Bush's promise to work with Democrats and given Bush's trust of Democrat cabinet people like Tenet with WMD slam dunk proclamations, people will never know to what extent enemy failure was due to enemy or friendly actions. *Until both sides' records have been opened by history in 50 years*<BR/><BR/>It's rather simple concerning the details. To what extent did Democrat sabotaging of Bush's personnel and manpower requirements, contribute to Bush and his subordinates developing paranoia or self-selective criteria bias? And to what extent did Bush's trust of Democrat affiliated people, State Department included, contribute to the introduction of inefficient decisions into the stew.<BR/><BR/><B>Kerik authorized the formation of a hundred-man Iraqi police paramilitary unit to pursue criminal syndicates that had formed since the war, and he often joined the group on nighttime raids, departing the Green Zone at midnight and returning at dawn, in time to attend Bremer's senior staff meeting, where he would crack a few jokes, describe the night's adventures and read off the latest crime statistics prepared by an aide. The unit did bust a few kidnapping gangs and car-theft rings, generating a stream of positive news stories that Kerik basked in and Bremer applauded. But the all-nighters meant Kerik wasn't around to supervise the Interior Ministry during the day. He was sleeping.</B><BR/><BR/>As we see with Afghan and Iraq's current progress today, civilian help on it continues to be zero and it continues to be totally ineffective, even if it is there.<BR/><BR/>THe major component to getting them up was combat leadership and tribal loyalty.<BR/><BR/>Civilians would not have been able to handle that, and even if they could, they would not have been allowed to by the DoS.<BR/><BR/>In terms of "executive" level experience, that is still being provided by US military forces and trainers in the form of the cadres they have trained for police battalions. We're not talking about one precinct of police or even the police size of one city like New York. The Iraqi police are essentially light infantry numbering in division times division strength.<BR/><BR/>THe only people with executive experience with leading and training that number of people are military, not civilian, affiliated folks.<BR/><BR/>After the successful Democrat actions in Vietnam to get AMerica's allies killed and exiled, the US military was extremely reluctant to have US military personnel leading foreign auxiliaries or telling foreign police and civilian agencies what to do and how to do it. They remember the debacle of Vietnam and how the Left hurt them there. Most of the rest of the civilians in America, do not.<BR/><BR/>The overall arching truth concerning strategic and political level policy failures in Iraq was that America did not have the necessary Imperial infrastructure to take in a foreign nation and build it up according to America's standards. Cause America didn't even have standards for what foreign nations should look like, especially Arab foreign nations. THe US once had standards for admitting new states, like banning frontierswomen from voting, but the modern US has lost even that form of requirement.<BR/><BR/>Given such institutional lack of awareness, you could switch the individuals the Bush people picked around all you liked. It wasn't going to do anything in the end. Even the US military had to spend copious amounts of time learning how to do things right. And nobody wants to say Bush picked Casey and Abizaid out of some nascent corrupt and penny anting instinct.Ymarsakarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11246906722493964175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-44574849024001664392008-09-15T16:47:00.000-04:002008-09-15T16:47:00.000-04:00THe problem with stories like that is given what p...THe problem with stories like that is given what people have lied about concerning Iraq and Vietnam, all anti-Iraq and anti-Vietnam stories become suspect.<BR/><BR/>Not only do they have to break past the burden of proof, but they also have to break past the burden of proving their intentions and integrity as well.<BR/><BR/>Until they do, nobody's security filters should let the data into be processed by the human mind the same we do with sensations of hot/cold.Ymarsakarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11246906722493964175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-50024184159838946322008-09-14T21:40:00.000-04:002008-09-14T21:40:00.000-04:00GW-Re: Iraq - I was referring to stuff like this.GW-<BR/><BR/>Re: Iraq - I was referring to stuff like <A HREF="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/16/AR2006091600193_pf.html" REL="nofollow">this</A>.ChenZhenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04048512333998898113noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-84819651929546779222008-09-14T19:36:00.000-04:002008-09-14T19:36:00.000-04:00Chechnya here means Palin is like Bush and uses co...Chechnya here means Palin is like Bush and uses corrupt practices.<BR/><BR/>If you think about the Democrat party leaders like Obama, Reid, and Pelosi, you'll get a pretty good idea of how he thinks Palin and Bush are connected.Ymarsakarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11246906722493964175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-44954983928645402842008-09-14T19:06:00.000-04:002008-09-14T19:06:00.000-04:00ChenZhen - The bit about Brownie was my first thou...ChenZhen - The bit about Brownie was my first thought also. Having said that, I googled Alaska's Ag. chief and it turns out she has a lifetime of involvement in farming and agriculture. Beyond that, I didn't see anything about Palin's appointments that was problematic. Given that 5 of her classmates are no government hirees is probably statistically low. There are 650,000 people in Alaska. 25,000 of them work for the state. And there is nothing in the article to suggest that the people Palin has hired were incompetent - something I would clearly expect to see in the NYT article if there was even a whiff of it. <BR/><BR/>As to your comment about Iraq, you lost me on that one. <BR/><BR/>At any rate, thanks for stopping by and commenting.GWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-43741835002988239602008-09-14T17:32:00.000-04:002008-09-14T17:32:00.000-04:00This reminds me of all those times Al Sadr got to ...This reminds me of all those times Al Sadr got to shoot his mouth off while he was torturing and killing Shia in his little ghetto military camps.<BR/><BR/>Every single time he did it, I feel the same thing as I do now, Wolf.<BR/><BR/>The Democrats couldn't pick competent people if their lives depended upon it.Ymarsakarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11246906722493964175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-44966670456473121572008-09-14T15:22:00.000-04:002008-09-14T15:22:00.000-04:00Well I think that we've had enough of the "loyalty...Well I think that we've had enough of the "loyalty over competence" style of governing. <BR/><BR/>I figured that there would be plenty of people who'd look at this NYT piece and say "so what?". But this is the type of thing that gave us Brownie and a Harriet Miers nomination and Valarie Plame and complete mismanagement in Iraq. <BR/><BR/>I say pick people who can do the job right and learn to get along.ChenZhenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04048512333998898113noreply@blogger.com