July 29, 2006

Inside the neo-con mind

Does this guy occupy the same country I do?

What if the tactical mistake we made in Iraq was that we didn't kill enough Sunnis in the early going to intimidate them and make them so afraid of us they would go along with anything? Wasn't the survival of Sunni men between the ages of 15 and 35 the reason there was an insurgency and the basic cause of the sectarian violence now?

Well, no. The reason there are so many Sunnis between those ages joining the insurgency is that our man Bremer decided to disband the Iraqi Army, thus putting 400,000 people out of work. Many of them were men between 18-35.

Aside from that, can Podhoretz really be saying that if we'd only killed more people we wouldn't have the problems we have now? Mr. Podhoretz, do you not understand the nature of tribal societies? Let me recommend a book to you: A History of the Arab Peoples. I have a well-thumbed copy right here; care to borrow it?

Bloodthirsty idiot.

Posted by Linkmeister at July 29, 2006 04:21 PM | TrackBack
Comments

This is the new line from the neocons -- it's our own fault for not being more ruthless at the beginning.

In the end, though, all this does is reveal their real intentions -- there's no "fighting for freedom" or "gaining a toehold for democracy", the whole point was to whip those people until they begged for capitulation, at which point we would sail in and take whatever we wanted.

Posted by: Brian at July 30, 2006 07:26 AM

The other thing is that this is part of the stabbed-in-the-back/enemies-within line of argumentation: we didn't kill enough people and we weren't ruthless enough because our troops weren't allowed to...because of lilly-livered factions at home to tied the troops' hands and doomed us all!

Posted by: Scott at July 30, 2006 09:18 AM

Considering that Wolfie and Rummy are on record that they needed fewer troops than Gen. Shinseki recommended, hopefully that one won't fly, Scott.

Posted by: Linkmeister at July 30, 2006 09:20 AM

One significant reason that so many Sunni's joined the insurgency was that they were paid to do so.

With unemployment so high in that age group there, the monies offered were irrestible.

Monie supplied, of course, by wealthy Saudi's.

Posted by: Pixelshim at August 1, 2006 01:33 AM

After reading this and Pod's article that Billmon referenced a few days ago, the thing that strikes me about Podhoretz, besides his unbridled hysteria, is that he's a lousy writer.

Poked around a little and found this amusing bio sketch of Podhoretz. He appears to be a shining example of the neocons' welfare system.

Posted by: Kate at August 3, 2006 02:23 PM

Goodness, Kate! That bio is worthy of Billmon's writing! Very funny stuff.

Posted by: Linkmeister at August 3, 2006 05:34 PM