"I remember the hordes of fleeing Iraqis, laden down with their pillage from Kuwait, racing up the highway, and US forces attacking and bombing them, turning it into the "Highway of Death" until our own pilots, sickened at the carnage, simply refused to continue the attacks."

Sorry, but this former USAF Viper driver who was actually there is calling bullshit on this one. This is a folklore legend. No pilot refused to fly missions. In fact, just the opposite, many of us were disgusted that so many were allowed to escape because the higher ups got antsy when they saw the pictures.

The "Highway Of Death" looked horrible to the civlilian world, but that's what war looks like. It was no worse or better than a million other scenes of combat throughout history.

"...refused to continue the attacks" my ass. I don't know of a single Hog driver or Viper driver (and the communities aren't that large) that "refused to continue". That's an insult to the professionalism of those warriors.

Sorry Jay, but you usually do a better job than this.

Faith+1 is correct. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the criticism was that we failed to close the door at Basra because we eased up. This allowed the remaining Iraqi armor to escape up the "Highway of Death." This also lead to the famous incident during the initial cease fire where Barry McCaffrey's division fired on "retreating" Iraqi tanks. They were attempting to escape and they fired on U.S. forces, so McCaffrey had his boys fire back. Had we not gone soft and closed the door like we should have, this wouldn't have happened and Faith+1's brothers in the air could have finished the job they were trying to do.

Damn, Faith, you're right. It was the public outcry, not the pilots.

I gotta watch that. I get my main point across, but get sloppy on the supporting details. And that's where I usually get hung.

My apologies, and my thanks for the correction.

J.

Damn, Faith, you're right. It was the public outcry, not the pilots.

I gotta watch that. I get my main point across, but get sloppy on the supporting details. And that's where I usually get hung.

My apologies, and my thanks for the correction.

J.

I remember being ticked that Bush did not finish the job at the urging of Schwarzkopf (at least I think he urged Bush). Yes, the U.N. tied Bush's hands at the time since, presumably, it was the only way to form that vast coalition. I'm still ticked at Bush Sr. for not insisting for regime change way back when. We might have avoided some of the mess we have today. Admittedly, we might have a different mess and it's impossible to know what blowback might have occurred. Still, it's hard to imagine a worse outcome from what this country has had to endure to pay for the correction. Don't think Bush Sr. doesn't have regrets over that strategic decision.

I saw Schwarzkopf speak a year or so after the first Iraq war. He said then that one and only reason we didn't continue on into Baghdad and depose Saddam then was because the invasion force was a strong coalition force and they would not have supported invading Baghdad. If we’d have continued on, we would have been on our own and risking upsetting many of our Muslim allies.

Wow, even JT gets double posts sometime.

As your doctor, I am going to have to remind you to take your Aricept and Namenda more regularly.

At the time I supported the position that we shouldn't/couldn't take down Iraq. And I still understand why it was like that in 1991.

But we should have continued to take the fight to them for another few days, at least, to knock down Saddam's military further and to increase the odds that internal forces could overthrow him. Another week of combined ops would have done wonders for the situation.

If he gets deposed, it's good. If he doesn't, he's weaker. Instead, he came out looking pretty strong in the end, and that gave him (and many others) the impression that standing up the US might not be such a bad thing to try. And look what that got us.

Jay Tea. Really! Could this be the onset of senility, dementia or amnesia, or worse, spin? We need to be told! Who can I trust if I cant trust the blogs?

As for Bush Sr. not insisting on regime change, wasn't it Margaret Thatcher that really put the backbone in him to do as much as we did do?

I know that looking back today a lot of us are all going "we should have done more" but there was a very real possibility that we might have done very little at all.

It was a far different world in 1991.

"Don't get wobbly", I think Thatcher said. Or is that just part of the legend?

Aside from the "Highway of Death" item, that's how I remember it too.

I remember a battle at a town on the Kuwait-Saudi border where American units fought alongside Saudi mech-infantry troops against Iraqi army forces. At the time the press dismissed it as a minor skirmish, but it involved a total of several thousand Coalition troops and became an important piece of the puzzle because it gave our side a look at both our own deficiencies and Iraqi tactics.

I remember that during the six months between the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and Operation Desert Storm, the liberals were saying we shouldn't get involved, that we should let the Saudis defend themselves against an army that outnumbered theirs by ten to one.

I remember a few things that were never widely reported about the strategy and tactics used by Schwarzkopf, like Special Forces setting up logistics bases in the Kuwaiti desert before the big ground attack, and a massive deception aimed at making the Iraqis believe we were going to hit them with an amphibious assault along with a direct ground attack.

I remember how utterly screwed-up and unreliable the mainstream media reports were about the entire operation.

Finally, I remember how the Coalition troops, technology, and tactics worked far better against the Soviet-made Iraqi equipment than many had expected. Yet no one on the political left gave any credit to the military for this. Instead, without missing a step they began yammering in unison about how the ease of the victory made it obvious that Saddam was never a serious threat at all. The more moonbattish ones extended this line of thought into the wacko-conspiracy theory that Bush Senior secretly orchestrated the whole thing for his own nefarious purposes, first giving Saddam a green light to invade Kuwait, then using the invasion as an excuse to launch an unjustified war of aggression against Iraq.

I also recall Bush 41 encouraging the Iraqi's to rise up and overthrow Saddam. Unfortunately, those who did rebel were met with overwhelming force and killed in the thousand's by Saddam while we sat and watched unable (politically) to aid them.

I believe that this particular folly of Bush 41 caused Operation Iraqi Freedom to be harder win that it would have been otherwise. The Iraqis who saw what happened to those that followed the American's in '91 were much more relunctant to put their necks on the line this time around.

- MikeB

Jay Tea:

Your memory's a little faulty.

You're forgetting that before the beginning of combat operations back in 1990-1991, the Left was busily screaming that "sanctions should be given a chance to work." You forget that the Left refused to approve the use of force (to the point that the Senatorial vote was quite close, enough to have Al Gore putting his support out for bid, looking for prime-time coverage of his speech).

You forget that, throughout that short war, both the air and the ground campaign, the Left constantly chanted "No blood for oil!" (sound familiar?), and argued that Saddam ruling Kuwait was no different than the Kuwaitis ruling Kuwait, especially since the Kuwaitis were not prepared to fight for their own territory. (What is it about the Left that apparently believes that only dictators are fit to rule the people, even if it's foreign dictators?)

The anti-war folks that I remember claimed that we had bombed baby-milk factories (complete w/ Iraqi workers in uniforms that said "baby milk factory" in English), and an air raid shelter (which just happened to be built over a communications center).

Somehow, they remember the abuse meted out by the likes of Lyddie England, but never remember COL Rhonda Cornum, who was assaulted by Iraqi soldiers:

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/doubleissue/heroes/cornum.htm

Then, when the war was over, the same people who said sanctions would have worked, immediately started screaming for an end to those same sanctions---and of course later claimed that those same baby-killing sanctions would keep Saddam in check.

So, Jay Tea, I think your memory's still a little faulty.

I with you here Jay. I've been debating at school since I returned last semester, yet every time I begin to debate a "lefty" about the Gulf War I and the current war in Iraq, they always say that Bush 41 should have "finished the job", yet when I remind them (and I carry a laptop to pull up the only weapon that causes them problems, PROOF) that their wonderful leader, the UN, said we could not do that, they devolve into histerics. Basically, I hear them saying that "we should do what the UN says, unless you can see into the future and it won't work, then don't do what they say, and we'll carp over it no matter what."

One piece of advice for "the left", SHUT YOUR FRIGGIN PIE HOLES!

RE: Murdoc's reference (September 29, 2005 08:57 AM)
"Don't get wobbly", I think Thatcher said. Or is that just part of the legend?

Great quote. Almost Churchillian. I believe you're right and it isn't lore.

RE: MikeB's post (September 29, 2005 09:04 AM)
I believe that this particular folly of Bush 41 caused Operation Iraqi Freedom to be harder win that it would have been otherwise. The Iraqis who saw what happened to those that followed the American's in '91 were much more relunctant to put their necks on the line this time around.

Yup. Put yourself in their shoes for round two. Bitter memories not forgotten and dead ancestors not yet dust. No one should wonder why the parades in the street were not as large as expected in the early days of military victory. That is a legacy we need to have seared in our minds to further motivate us to finish this long slog. I'm certain our military has the head and stomach for it. I know our political leadership doesn't ... at least a not insignificant minority. You'd think they'd all remember.

the fault was on Schwarzkopf allowing Saddam to keep his helicopters in the air - presumably to get his injured, dead, clean up, etc. Of course, he used them to continue his evil against his enemies. Big mistake on our part.

I have a DVD of the first season of Micheal Moore's TV show (only because he did a thing on the corrupt public defenders in my hometown, who held 1 jury trial out of 700 felony convictions). In one episode I remember he says we've flown hundreds of thousands of sorties over Iraq during peacetime that and children are dying of hunger from the sanctions. That was 1999.

Then in 2004 I remember John Kerry saying flat out, "the sanctions were working." I also remember Clinton on several occasions saying that Iran is a model of democracy, and then Hillary saying that the USSR was just trying to bring "women's rights" to Afghanistan (by running their legs over with tanks to get info about their husbands' hideouts?). So much for intellectual foreign policy thinkers.

All kinds of off-topic, but Jay Tea: Did you receive your assignment from me?

--|PW|--

Considering the topic was "my shoddy memory, Penny, not that O/T at all.

Yes, I did, and it's proving a bit of a challenge. Will a crude caricature count for one?

J.

Hmmmm.

@ Jay Tea

"I probably should discuss this with my doctor, because every single one of those statements clashes with how I remember things."

Which is why I now have a Wiki dedicated to storing information, links and entire articles on specific subjects.

If you're not doing this already, then I suggest you start. It helps manage the information overload.

And yeah, I know you're being sarcastic, but the idea for using a Wiki as a library tool is a pretty good one anyways.

pennywit's right: This is all kinds of off-topic. The larger issue is being missed.

I believe what Jay is getting or hinting at is that our "collective memory" as a nation is more than just faulty and shaky at times, it's downright forgetful. We all too often forget to place today's events and issues into proper historical context. We forget that this lead to that and that to this and this and this and this and on and on. In short, a historical timeline of events is not at the forefront of far too many minds.

At times, too, that memory is selective in what it chooses to remember and address. And while what is being remembered may be factually correct, a conscious ommission of historical context often takes place. For instance, liberals often like to say "We supported Saddam in the early 80s! We gave him weapons!" All of which is factually true. However, what is often not said is WHY we supported Saddam in the 80s. The correct and factual historical context would be that Iran, not Iraq, was our mortal enemy and that's why Iraq received our support. To consciously omit that information is, in my mind, is to be purposefully misleading and presents a false argument in the end.

Now we can get into why or why not it was good idea to support Saddam until the cows come home. But I don't believe that is Jay's ultimate point, and it's not mine either. My point is this: The left's collective memory in the U.S. far too often consciously omits, ignores or just plain avoids placing present events and situations into historical context in order to fulfill and promote its agenda.

And, in this case, that is the present Iraq War.

Jay Tea:

Depends on the caricature, but sure.

--|PW|--

What an interesting straw man, "people against the Iraq war have bad memories". Sure, if you're arguing with people from ANSWER or other such nuts. By confining the debate to "me against all these idiots" and ignoring all of the intelligent and attentive people who opposed this war, you get nowhere. I remember why Bush didn't invade Baghdad in '91, and I thought he was right. The reason he didn't invade Baghdad, however, was not not only because of the UN (and it wasn't because of the left at all), but because he knew we would, well, let's let Cheney tell it:

And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many. So I think we got it right… and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.” -1992

This was also my objection to the current Iraq war, or one of them anyway. The others were I don't think we should be invading soveriegn nations that have not attacked or threatened us, and I believed the weapons inspectors that the war was not justified, at least not on WMD grounds. Further, I understood the ethnic and religious makeup in Iraq, and was worried that all we would do was set up a battleground for civil war, which it seems we have.

By the way another straw man:

People started calling for an end to the sanctions, saying that Saddam had been "punished enough."

What people? I seem to remember those who opposed the sanctions did so because of all the due to lack of food and medical supplies brought on by the sanctions, as you noted. Of course, our invasion only made that worse. I don't remember anyone saying Saddam had suffered enough, or at all for that matter. Care to refresh my memory with an actual quote?

In any case, Jay, this seems only the latest in a series of posts where you ignore the reality on the ground in Iraq, proclaim that we are winning, and denigrate anyone who opposes the war as stupid and forgetful. Care to comment on the fact that there is only one capable battalion in the Iraqi army (brought down from three since June), and how that jibes with your stance? It's hard work, maybe?

Or please, just refresh my memory, why was this war a good idea?

mantis,

I think the reason the sanctions were starving children was because of corruption in the Oil-for-Food program (of course, only after the program was initiated, but that's why it was initiated).

I also don't agree with the characterization that we suddenly attacked a sovereign nation. Saddam lost his sovereignty by not complying with weapons inspections. We also were bombing them in the 11 years between the two wars, and they were shooting at our planes. So it's not like in March 2003 we suddenly went from peace to no peace.

Well, mantis, it would seem that David Adesnik at Oxblog addressed many of the points that were raised in the Washington Post article (which was reprinted in "The Age").

http://www.eyeonthepost.org/2004/11/oxblog-shows-compost-iraq-malnutrition.html

The most important, of course, being that the statistics used to show that malnutrition is worsening (and this is a year ago) depends on believing Saddam's figures (or that of his mouthpieces, such as "Voices in the Wilderness").

Now, the funny thing about that is that the same folks who argue that malnutrition is worsening are the ones who believed that 5000 Iraqi children were dying every month of malnutrition and lack of vaccines under Saddam.

And, of course, are the same ones who mention nary a word about the Oil-for-Food scandal in the first place.

Who were the same ones who demanded sanctions in 1990, and were demanding them (again!) in 2003.

As for the number of battalions of Iraqis able to fight without US support (kinda different from what you wrote, nu?), perhaps one of the reasons that they've dropped is because they've been in combat?

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050911/ts_nm/iraq_dc

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4841895

But I'm sure that cutting and running, abandoning the Iraqis to the jihadis, is a familiar policy for the Left. It worked so well in Vietnam and Cambodia, after all.

I remember the dying children bit. It wasn't even a small thing, it was HUGE. I recall long debates about how the evil US was callously allowing Iraqi children to die because we refused to let Saddam have the oh-so-innocent chlorine he needed for the water treatment plants. Every bit of it was Our Fault. I recall detailed explanations about how water treatment works and how that kind of chlorine wasn't necessary at all, that Saddam was more than able to treat water and save Iraqi children's lives while complying with the sanctions.

It wasn't about saving children, obviously, (we really had no idea about the food-for-oil corruption at that point, at least it never made the news and public consciousness,) it was about proving that the US was the evil one and Saddam the victim. Sanctions sure as heck weren't working in *our* favor.

Didn't Bin Laden specifically cite the dying children who couldn't even get clean water because of the Americans thing... probably more than once? The evil Americans killing Iraqi children played very *very* well, and now we get "should have given the sanctions more time to work."

*snort*

So how many battalions do the opposition have, Mantis? How much territory do they control? How many public utilities have they restored? How many clinics have they set up? How many schools have they built? What kind of poll numbers are they getting with the Iraqi people? Regale us with heroic tales of the brave resistance.

What's your point, B? That I support terrorists? You're wrong, friend.

My point, which would be obvious to you if you weren't trying to pidgeonhole me, is that the Iraqis are far from ready to take control of their own country, the sectarian struggles are getting worse and the upcoming constitution referendum could very well send the whole country into civil war (with the added benefit of foreign terrorists who have migrated in to fight us, double trouble!). I understand you feel safer in your black and white ideological world of "US versus Terrorists", but on the ground it isn't quite that simple. What I am concerned with is what we do next. How can we prevent the country from descending into absolute chaos, and if we can't, what will we do then? Side with the Shiites and Kurds (if they stick) and obliterate the Sunnis? Withdraw? Freedom will sure be on the march in either case.

But you're right, the opposition, as you call them (please define the opposition, by the way), doesn't set up schools and clinics. Hats off to you on that observation. Who said they did?

Hmmm...is this thing working? I'm not able to post for some reason.

Another thing I recall from the build up to Desert Storm was report after report after report about the psychological trauma that would result from the inevitable drawn out war that was on the horizon. Over and Over and Over.

mantis, we've heard the pessimists crying civil war and social break down and citing each setback or bomb or assassination as proof of the downward spiral and it just *never* *happens*. Why is it so much more legitimate to speculate about what could go wrong instead of what could go right? Why is looking at all the bad news intellegent and looking at the good news not?

So far the doom sayers have been consistently wrong. Up until the day before the first Iraqi elections our media was reporting about all of the bad things that were going to render the elections anywhere from a blood bath to illegitimate. Other than a few isolated incidents it went just fine. All that bad stuff we were supposed to be so sure was just around the corner *never* *happened*.

People who chose to look at the good news and chose to anticipate more good news are not operating without an historical reason for their optimism.

My point is there is a huge fucking difference between "this isn't going to be quick and easy" and "OMG we are losing". My point is that unless you think the Iraqi's are complete retards they are going to notice that we are a force for good in their country, and the alternatives pretty much suck. My point is that rather than wallow in the negative and obsess on things that aren't happening overnight, you could put what we are trying to accomplish over there in proper perspective, realize the massive scope, and give it a chance to work on a reasonable time frame.

We are winning, maybe not as decisively as you would like, but to look at what has happened over there as a failure and a mistake is ridiculous.

It is so easy to talk about "the left did this..." and "the right did this...". If only the world was really so simple - and perhaps some in the USA really believe the world is so exactly dipolar. Unfortunately, no matter what good points people have they are diluted by this strange labelling.

A friend of mine was on the front line in 1991 and was told clearly that a political deal had been made with regional governm