Do we have to be evil AND incompetent too?

I'm angry and I'll admit it. It turns out that these men from the Project for the New American Century, who have held a war of conquest in Iraq as one of their stated goals for at least 5 years, who have on the public record their idea that something like "another Pearl Harbor" would have to occur in order to get public consent for such an invasion, who have been salivating at the thought of creating a new American hegemony in the Middle East which would include subsequent invasions of Iran and Syria, to name just a few, have finally gotten their wish. They have blustered, bluffed, lied, and bullied the American people and the world into this stupid war. And when they finally get their chance, after all their planning, they decide to underfund our forces. It isn't enough to defeat Iraq militarily, they had to do it with just a minimum of forces, to show off our superior warmaking abilities, to cow the Saudis and the Syrians and the Palestinians and show everyone who was boss and who had the biggest missiles. Rumsfeld deliberately reduced the size of the operation against the explicit warnings of the military leadership - "Look, Ma, we can invade Iraq with no hands!" - and now those men and women we have there are paying the price.

The least these war-hungry, blood-thirsty, powermongering fools could have done was to make sure that our men and women in arms had the protection, and the planning, and the firepower to assure a swift victory. If we are going to take over another country, we can argue the merits of whether or not doing that is the right thing all day long. But from the beginning, these PNAC schemers have insisted that an invasion of Iraq would be "a cakewalk". Richard Perle, the new Prince of Darkness (it used to be Robert Novak), also said "Support for Saddam . . . will vanish at the first whiff of gunpowder."

Now we find that we are "Rolling to war with too few troops". Also see this interview. "Hope is not a plan" as they say in the armed forces, or at least they used to. Maybe someone should familiarize Cheney with that phrase.

More excellent work by Digby on all of this.

Howler Watch

Somerby sticks it to the pathetically feeble William Raspberry. You won't believe what Raspberry is in a quandrie about.

Iraq Watch

Here is a timeline of some important developments in Iraq-US recent history. To it, I would add that the US CIA was instrumental in toppling the previous regime in Iraq at the time of the coup. And also that Rumsfeld didn't just "shake hands" with Saddam. The US and Rumsfeld gave him the weapons that have been used to scare us all into this war.

Puppeteer Watch

I also heard last week that Richard Perle, who is one of the small group of men who actually get to control foreign policy in this country (along with Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. - and leave the rest of us to shut up and take it), was resigning to prevent a conflict of interest. I knew he got caught in a conflict of interest when Sy Hersch wrote an article about it in the New Yorker. He stands to profit handsomely from this war which he has brought about. I thought it was an act of unusual integrity for this gang, even though it was tempered by the fact that he already had his war (and his war profits), and he only resigned because he got caught. Turns out I judged him too hastily and generously. Liberal Oasis has the details of this "resignation".

"Humor" Watch

The Onion on the Iraqis who we either want to kill or liberate.