William Buckley on the Surge

“Yes or No To Bush?

By William F. Buckley Jr.

You are a Republican legislator, retiring after this, your fifth term. Last night, into midnight hours, you composed a questionnaire for yourself. You vowed to submit to it before your committee speech. You'd flower up the language a bit — but not the thought. You wake up this morning and turn to last night's self-quiz.

(1) Is it a strain to send more troops to Iraq?

No. A country of 300 million has resources insignificantly depleted by the proposed increase in troops.

Yes, there would be sacrifices. Mr. Chairman, I am not going to spend 10 seconds describing the anguish of the families of soldiers wounded or killed, which does not diminish that anguish. We are talking in clinical language. Hospitals don't pause to bemoan the deaths that occur on their premises. America has been at war in Iraq for nearly four years. No sacrifice of a corporate character has been asked of the American people. Taxes haven't been raised, gasoline hasn't been rationed, passports haven't been recalled.

Life in free countries produces victims in every field. In the past four years, 3,000 American soldiers have died in Iraq. In the same period, about 170,000 Americans have died in car accidents, and about 1.6 million have died from tobacco-related illnesses.

(2) Is our Iraqi enterprise worth a corporate commitment by America?

That is the taxing question. If success in Iraq would bring an end to the movement of which Iraq is now the apex, the answer would clearly be yes. Has the president persuasively argued that it would do so? No. He has said that "failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States." He hasn't said why. Great countries do lose great engagements. We did in Vietnam and Korea, and the Soviets did in Afghanistan.

Would America be less threatening to its armed enemies if we pulled out of Iraq? That depends on a single element: Iran. Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria are all, in this epoch in history, living direful lives. But only Iran has or is developing the dispositive weapon.

(3) How does the Iraq question bear on the Iran question?

If Iran did not exist, Iraq could proceed with its sectarian strife with consequences only for Iraqis. But Iran is critical in several ways. Iran is training, inflaming, transporting, and supplying all Muslims within reach to join in the fighting. We have moved to toughen sanctions against Iran, but they have not proved sufficient to effect a regime change.

(4) Then doesn't it follow that the American role in Iraq is indeed critical?

No, actually. America could help the Maliki government in Iraq fight the insurgents. But the evidence, in the last two years especially, is that the strength of the insurgents lies not in their military organization but in their techniques. Our losses are mostly from IEDs — improvised explosive devices. An elevation in American fighting forces in Iraq doesn't diminish, pro tanto, the number of IEDs that will be set off.

The threat in Iraq is from the apparently inexhaustible flow of insurgents who plant the IEDs and who engage in wanton killings of Iraqi defenders. What no strategist, American or Iraqi, has successfully addressed is the question of how to diminish that noxious flow. One American general petitioned the Iraqi government to be more forceful with captured insurgents, many of whom are simply released. But nothing like a galvanized rout of apprehended insurgents is in prospect, which problem touches on -

(5) The sectarian character of the Iraqi population, which is the source of divisiveness extending beyond any dislike or resentment of America.

A geographical division of Iraq is inevitable. The major players are obvious. It isn't plain how America, as an outside party, could play an effective role, let alone one that was decisive, in that national redefinition. And America would do well to encourage non-American agents to act as brokers — people with names like Ban Ki-moon.

On the basis of this analysis I will vote against supplementary American involvement in Iraq.”

“Source?”

“I've never cared much for Buckley, but always found what he had to say interesting.”

“He's definitely smarter than your average bear.”

“s-rge is dead”

“SS: its from the National Review Website:

http://author.nationalreview.com/latest/?q=MjE0Ng==”

“I pretty much agree with you MarkO. Buckley is arrogant and I usually disagree dramatically with him, but he is, as Stickman says, very smart and almost always thoughtful and intellectually consistent and rigorous.”

“Thanks, pedx. Didn't want you pulling a violin on us.”

“National boundaries drawn by colonial powers are a continuing source of conflict. There was, however, an experienced Iraqi hand on C-SPAN over the weekend who commented that partitioning was no magic bullet due to the dispersal of the three primary groups throughout the region.

also--
I wouldn't want a gov't run by bears...


Here's a site that will help translate Buckley or similar: http://www.yuni.com/library/latin.html

(of course the context based Google ads come back with 'Latin Dating,' LMAO)”

“Nice page Tilt, thanks for the link.


And latin wimmens are A-OK in my book.
last edited: 1/17/07 12:41:51 AM”

“I took two years of Latin back in '72-'73... Now I've repressed it all, LOL

I believe it's called Selective Forgetting.”

“It's good to examine the idea that we can disagree with intelligent people. The true worth of that examination comes when we discover what dysfunction allows us to consistently disagree with intelligent people.”

“Sure lets examine. - The rub is that many extremely intelligent people disagree with each other.

Sadly, all of us sub-geniuses have to either haphazardly pick which intelligent people to agree with and which ones to disagree with or engage in the difficult process of thinking for ourselves.
last edited: 1/17/07 6:43:10 AM”

“The threat in Iraq is from the apparently inexhaustible flow of insurgents who plant the IEDs and who engage in wanton killings of Iraqi defenders. What no strategist, American or Iraqi, has successfully addressed is the question of how to diminish that noxious flow.

That's a pretty narrow lens through which to view "the surge". It seems to me a more informative perspective would be to view it as a psychological blow to the Iranians. After the Iraq Study Group Report recommended withdrawal and after idiot uninformed Americans who have no clue of geopolitical reality voted in the Democrats to punish Bush on the Iraq war, Bush sending in a surge of troops was highly unexpected. It'll keep the Iranians off balance and uncertain they're in as good a posture as they like to think. It remains to be see how it plays out.
last edited: 1/17/07 8:21:54 AM”

“We casually mention to the Iranians that they are treading on thin ice. Photgraph Iranians crossing the border, declare it an incursion, and nuke the border within 20 miles of Iraq.

LOL better yet, SEAL team into the Major fuel port, blow it sky high...cut the Iranian MONEY flow.
last edited: 1/17/07 8:48:31 AM”

“That's what I admire about you most XL, your subtlety.

"Screw land mines! Irradiate the border!" LOL!”

“...after idiot uninformed Americans who have no clue of geopolitical reality voted in the Democrats to punish Bush on the Iraq war...

Mutt
8:21:22 AM
1/17/07

it must be nice to be in the 5% of informed *cough* *wheeze* americans. hows the kool-aid tasting this morning?”

“Up In Smoke?”

“latin wimmens......

:-)”

“I like the US...the NAFTA highway will be the border between East and West....”

“The Buckley thread has greatly exceeded William F's abilities to think.”

“Why would William Buckly even care about Sarge anyhow?

Oh, sorry. I gotta get my eyes checked damn it.”

“Nigal, 'splurge'.”

“I reckon the war contractors and gun-runners are toasting this "surge".......kinda like vendors when a ballgame goes to overtime.....they can sell a few more hotdogs.”

“[MarkO] Hey, maaaaaan, those gun running scumbags got Shrub like on their payroll. It's like totally a conspiracy, maaaaaan! [/MarkO]”

“Maybe you should lay off the meth, Mutt.”

“William Buckley on the Sarge, Nigal?
LMAO!

LOL@Mutt so true”

“That's HOT!”

“Funny you should put this on the thread devoted to a long time conservative Republican icon.

Bush's fantasy is that people will believe the line your poster promotes. Punch drunk George keeps playing into the jihadi's plans. I imagine they think he is a gift from God.
last edited: 2/21/07 7:40:36 AM”

“Punch drunk Democrats keeps playing into the jihadi's plans. I imagine they think Dems are a gift from God.



”

“I wonder what kinda "punch" Georgie is drinkin'?

Maybe he'll trip over the dog again and knock himself out and then wake up to reality.”

“Murtha finds military progress in trip to Iraq
Warns that Iraqis must do more for their own security
Thursday, November 29, 2007
By Jerome L. Sherman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
WASHINGTON - U.S. Rep. John Murtha today said he saw signs of military progress during a brief trip to Iraq last week, but he warned that Iraqis need to play a larger role in providing their own security and the Bush administration still must develop an exit strategy.

"I think the 'surge' is working," the Democrat said in a videoconference from his Johnstown office, describing the president's decision to commit more than 20,000 additional combat troops this year. But the Iraqis "have got to take care of themselves."

Violence has dropped significantly in recent months, but Mr. Murtha said he was most encouraged by changes in the once-volatile Anbar province, where locals have started working closely with U.S. forces to isolate insurgents linked to Al Qaeda.

He said Iraqis need to duplicate that success at the national level, but the central government in Baghdad is "dysfunctional."

Mr. Murtha's four day-trip took him to a Thanksgiving dinner with troops in Kuwait last Thursday, and he then made stops in Iraq, Turkey and Belgium.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07333/837824-100.stm”