the smedley log - suburban scrawl

Are goals bad too?

Okay, I understand that “artificial timetables” aren’t good, but what about goals?

It just seems like a cop-out when war apologists avoid this simple question by saying things like “we won’t doom the effort with artificial timetables.” And by “apologists” I don’t mean just anyone who supports the Iraq war or the War on Terror.

Supporters are the ones who support the war and are willing to commit to actual success; apologists are the ones who are rooted in pretending we’ll succeed no matter what we do in Iraq (or in that other abstract nation we call “Terror”—I’ve never been too clear on where that is exactly).

Supporters are like good parents. They love you and want you to succeed with all their hearts, but they’ll still tell you when you’re behaving like an idiot. Apologists will watch you with an approving look even as you fall on your face, not wanting to embarrass you in front of your peers.

Supporters will actually let you know your faults, in hopes that you’ll correct them; apologists will ignore those faults in hopes that you’ll survive anyway.

Okay, time to get past the broken record portion of this post.

I’ve grown weary of hearing people, both those giving speeches over the past couple days and those analyzing them to death, repeatedly airing the phrase “artificial timetables,” and reminding how they’re a bad thing. I’m weary of it partly because I couldn’t agree more that a timetable for a timetable’s sake is poor policy, but also because it allows apologists to continue ignoring any attempts at an honest discussion of the war effort (which is even more infuriating when you’re a supporter who wants to promote ideas for improving, not just settling for, the areas of poor performance we’ve seen so far).

If you let people know you have a goal, is that really so bad? Does it have to equate with a hard and fast point where you’ll just cut out regardless of the progress (or lack of it)? On the other hand, maybe if you put out a clear and confident notion of when you expect success to be achieved, people will start to believe in your vision. That tends to happen when you set a clear objective that people can actually understand, rather than babbling on and on about some vague concept of success that nobody, including you, seems to understand. People tend to be uneasy when they can’t understand what their leaders are up to; they tend to become even more uneasy when they don’t think their leaders understand.

But I hear it said that if we set any kind of timetable, the terrorists will just sit back and wait for us to (and I love this phrase) “cut and run.” Then when we think we’ve accomplished the goal of a stable and democratic Iraq, as soon as we leave, everything will just crumble as the terrorist crawl back out from under their rocks. Which would only be true if what we’re building in Iraq is just a house of cards, and if you believe that, why on earth wouldn’t you leave as soon as possible?

But it seems at this point that any talk of goals will be instantly whisked to the whimsical kingdom of “Artificial Timetables”—where the apologists can comfortably re-frame every attempt at honest discourse and thereby avoid it entirely.

That’s the difference between supporters and apologists. It’s also the difference between being rational and rationalizing.

I think you need a comment here, but this was yet another post that I basically agreed with and just didn’t have anything earthshattering to add. I’ll bet some of your other readers feel the same way.

I’m so frustrated with this war. I didn’t automatically oppose it from the beginning, I don’t feel sufficiently aprised of military/national security matters to make any judgements, but lately it’s abundantly clear that things aren’t getting better.

I wish I trusted the government to do the right thing. I used to believe that our government wouldn’t intentionally put us in harm’s way. Not to say they wouldn’t do all sorts of ill-advised or just plain corrupt things, but I never thought they’d hurt us intentionally. Now my belief in this is wavering and I’m not sure what to think.

In other words, after all the rambling is done, yeah Howard, I get what you’re saying.

Thanks Melissa. I appreciate the kind company you offer this lonely post. Don’t feel too bad, though. History is littered with (probably much more) brilliant posts that nobody ever comments on.

I just wrote it in case anyone out there (like you) could relate to what I was thinking. That said, I’m glad you offered your thoughts as well.

Maybe we should completely quit worrying about “when” (at least for now), and concentrate on “what”. As you point out, if we are clear on what we are trying to accomplish, then we can see how we are doing in terms of time frame. But this only works if you can come up with something significantly less generic than “a stable and democratic Iraq” for a goal. As a war supporter, it frustrates me to no end that the administration can’t seem to (or won’t) effectively articulate objective achievable goals. I know there are some out there. I’ve seen various things like “X number of Iraqi Army divisions can operate independently (including logisticts, etc.)”. There is an old maxim that says “what gets measured gets done.”

The flip side of all this is that there is a significant portion of the body politic who also have, but will not articulate, specific goals they want to accomplish, and who are just as disingenuous in their calls for a specific timetable as the Administration is in the crappy “sound bite” answers we keep getting. That said, you would think that the most powerful leader in the world could hire someone who could communicate some specific, achievable goals without significantly impairing our efforts.

What I find most galling about all this is that the administration doesn’t seem to grasp that in the absence of something more or less concrete to analyze, the media (who aren’t going to report “feel good” stories if there is anything else to report) are pretty much forced (if they are going to report anything) to fall back to the tried and true “body count” story.

Considering how many people are waiting eagerly to find something, ANYTHING, to jump on the Bush administration for, you can’t blame them for not wanting to officially commit to a timetable, a goal, or anything conceptually similar; if the timetable/goal is set too far in the future, that’ll lead to an avalanche of protests, and if the timetable/goal is too soon, and is missed, that’ll be pointed to for the next 200 years as “proof” that they couldn’t live up to their promises.

I’m far from an expert in what it takes to make a country a stable democracy, but it seems to me that there’s no way to have any idea how long it’ll actually take, given all the unknowns and variables, chief among them the religious fanaticism of some of the people opposing the change… and more to the point, there’s no actual benefit for a time frame to be stated, so why ask for it other than as a way to be a burr under the saddle of the administration?

Howard in response to this post here is a link to the goals they have been republished A href=”http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/iraq_strategy_nov2005.html”>Goals They were originally posted back in 2003

sorry the link didn’t post as a link

he it is to be pasted in anyonoes browser

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/iraq_strategy_nov2005.html

Like I said this strategy was posted a couple of years ago but the Main Stream Media never bothered to comment on it. and the democrats choose to ignore it becouse it does not meet with their agenda

CT:

I took a peek at the strategy link you posted. Ufortunately, it offers nothing new. While I agree that it articulates some ideas for Iraq, I wouldn’t exactly call it a strategy. That’s been a big problem for me in this war. Framing a vague set of ideas doesn’t equal a strategy.

And furthermore, I don’t buy that the mainstream media is dictating the President’s message. If it were, why didn’t the President step onto his platform two years ago and drill this message through? He’s in a unique position to say whatever he wants to say and to have it heard by anyone who’s listening. I just don’t like blaming the media for things that can be otherwise controlled.

Btw, thanks for your detailed suggestions for Philly Future. I will forward them, but they don’t really belong on this post. (In the future, if you have something off-topic to send me, please feel free to use the contact information link on these pages—it’s in the upper portion of the sidebar.)

Omni,

As for your point about the President’s detractors, I think what Cziltang posted voices a lot of my feeling on that issue.

Understanding that there are unknowns and variables in stabilizing a country like Iraq, I’d still like to have a clear impression that our leaders aren’t as clueless about that mission as we all seem to be. Remember Rumsfeld talking of U.S. troops being greeted as liberators? They should have non only had, but projected, a more realistic vision for this campaign.

And I still don’t like the injection of the “timetable” language. I’m only speaking of goals. Maybe there shouldn’t be so much emphasis on the “when”, but on the “what.” (stealing a thought from Cziltang).

I’d also rather not believe the President is letting his detractors dictate policy statements either. That doesn’t comfort me in any way, so if they are squeamish enough to let opponents do the dictation, maybe that indicates a whole new layer of problems with the strategy.

No problem on the side bar. The thing is with the strategy it’s a simple one when you look at it. Iraq is part of the war on terror, it no longer is a safe haven for exporting support for terrorists, Saddam is not writing checks to palestinian suicide bombers, there is no one training on their 737 how to high jack planes, They are voting for their own government, writing their own constitution and their troops are being trained. What are the goals that you would like to see?

What I find lacking in the Democrat stance on Iraq is details on what they would do diffrent. If you take their statements to date the only thing we know is that they would start pulling troops out immeadiatly. What else have they said they would do? The Presidents strategy may be vague but its a hell of a lot clearer than the Democrats.

This administration does not communicate well at all, I agree and I do hold the press to account for the fact that they hold the administration to a demand for details, yet they refuse to do the same to the Democrats. Not one Democrat has been asked by the press to explain their statements from 98 when they supported Bill Clintons actions and the leaders of the Democrat party all said Iraq was developing Nuclear capabilities and was a threat that had to be dealt with. Yet today the same people say the opposit.

If the Goals of Free Elections and training troops to support their own government aren’t good enough what is it specificly that you want. Other than when will it be done?

If the Goals of Free Elections and training troops to support their own government aren’t good enough what is it specificly that you want.

That’s fine, I guess, as long it’s that simple. From my reading of the strategy, it really isn’t.

Has the President really culled down to such a simple statement? And if the administration is having communication difficulties, I still pin that on them, not the media.

I just found a discussion at http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?entry=3030
which references a recent (12/2/05) Dept. of Defense statememt (Army Lt. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chief of Multinational Security Transition Command Iraq) with some specific numbers and types of unit targets. Not a strategy statement, but fairly specific as to the “what” in this particular arena.

That’s more like—thanks!