[franksolich]

I agree; it’s an overused and trite—and erroneous—cliche, to say “history repeats itself.”

In a way, one supposes it does, but actually what happens is that humans keep on making the same mistakes over and over and over again.....thus suffering the same consequences over and over and over again.

[mathluv]

There was a letter to the editor in our paper this morning. It compared our current time/situation (illegal immigration) with the fall of the Roman empire - also due to ‘letting’ illegals stay.

[gcruse]

“Are we too stupid to learn from history?’

Yes.

[Tolik]

Orson Scott Card - PING  [please freepmail me if you want or don't want to be pinged to Orson Scott Card political articles]

This article will be posted permanently (eventually) on his The Ornery American website http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/index.html

Links: his articles discussed at FR: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/k-orsonscottcard/browse  and archived here (it is a must go place for all new to OSC political writing): http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/index.html

His fresh articles appear in the Rhinoceros Times, Greensboro, NC: http://www.rhinotimes.com/greensboro/  (before being posted permanently on his The Ornery American website). Read his books/movies/and everything reviews: http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/everything/ 

His "About" page: http://www.hatrack.com/osc/about.shtml

[TChris]

I love OSC.

Good stuff.

[Cicero]

Yes. I see that Card agrees with what I have always thought was Bush’s biggest mistake in the GWOT—his failure to tackle Syria as well as Iraq during his first term in office.

Far from making things harder, it would have made things greatly easier.

Iran was the other major problem. Harder to say what should have been done, but simply ignoring the threat was definitely wrong. The longer Bush has waited, the more difficult the political situation in this country, and the better prepared the Iranians are to resist us.

It would have been hard to deal with Iran four years ago, but now, after the loss of congress, it’s nearly impossible.

[MNJohnnie]

Sure Bush should of put more PR effort into maintaining support for the war effort. However, the argument presented here, to put it bluntly, is utterly unrealistic and simplistic.

You do not run a marathon by sprinting the 1st two miles.

This is how Democracies win long wars. This is the basic problem for most on the Right. They cannot seem to grasp the fact that Counter Insurgency is not Total war.

Sure, you maybe would of got a great effort out of the American people for a year or two. But this sort of war cannot be won in a year or two since the underlying problems that caused it have been building for generations. Even in WW2 you had politicians and people complaining about how long we were taking.

Unfortunately the political opposition in this country was too criminally irresponsible to allow this issue to fade into the background. They wanted to exploit this war for domestic political advantage.

For MOST Americans this war is a complete non issue. About 95% of the American people neither know anyone in Iraq or in the Military. If the Democrats had behaved as American patriots, instead of political opportunists, this war would of faded into the background noise. Thus the US Military would of had the time they needed to win this war. The only reason Iraq is an issue is because various Democrat politicians, aided and abetted by a cheer seconding in the “ News Media” scream at them 24/7/365 that they should be upset about it.

The basic fact of the matter is Counter Insurgency is a slow, painful ugly job. It is NOT a “hurry up and win” sort of mission.

So we maybe would of got a great upsurge in support followed by a corresponding massive drop in morale when the massive efforts put out produced little to no short term return in Iraq. No Mr.. Card, this sort of war cannot be won with a “Churchill” style leader. The expectations raised by a Churchill are beyond the capacities of a Counter Insurgency mission to gratify in the short term.

Bush has it right on this. As anyone who reads the raw data on Iraq can see.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Iraq

http://icasualties.org/oif/

[listenhillary]

From the article.

2. If you do not believe the threats of an insane enemy and destroy their war capacity early, when it can be cheaply done, you will pay for it in blood and horror.

Just like Hitler, our enemies in Al-Qaeda and Iran have announced their intentions over and over. Hitler said he would invade Russia and kill all the Jews (and a lot more!) — and he acted out his script faithfully.

Well, Al-Qaeda and Iran’s murderous, fanatical leadership have told us that they want a world without Israel and without America. They will obliterate Israel with nuclear weapons as soon as they get them.

They will keep Europe from interfering with them, with medium range nuclear missiles and with large Muslim populations that are poised to revolt and terrorize in Europe.

And eventually they will eliminate America as a factor in the world. When Islam rules the entire planet, America will fall into line. Meanwhile, all they have to do is outlast us — Americans always give up and go away if you just kill enough of them.

We know their intentions. We know their plan. And just like Chamberlain, we would have to be idiots to think they don’t mean it.