Not to mention 'Aqouldom's prescient warnings by a certain author regarding a "Lebanese logic."

I don't have LJ access for the pre-war stuff but glad to include it.

It's all archived in L's blog (I ported his LJ over when Aqoul was first built). He ranted about it for most of 2003, I believe.

http://lounsbury.aqoul.com/archives/lj_archive/jandec_2003/
http://lounsbury.aqoul.com/archives/lj_archive/janjul_2004/
http://lounsbury.aqoul.com/archives/lj_archive/augdec_2004/

Steel blah blah blah.

And then there were people like me, who thought it would be difficult as Hell but trusted that the government knew at least as much as I did and had the best minds working on some serious Marshall Plan type solution. After all, the United States government certainly couldn't be staking so much on something that appeared to have so little chance of success unless they had a plan, right?

They had a plan! It was the Underpants Gnomes plan:

Phase 1: Invasion

Phase 2: ?

Phase 3: Democracy !

So I will hear nothing more of your anti-americanism.

The underpants gnomes plagiarized anyway.

Well, I was in a similar state of mind as Antiquated Tory, but still somewhat skeptical. What changed my mind definitively (100% opposed) was reading an article by James Fallows in the January 2004 Atlantic Monthly entitled "Blind into Baghdad".

Having had some experience in military planning (I was a Logistics Plans Officer in the Air Force), I was flabbergasted to learn via the article that Rumsfeld micromanaged almost the entire process (article refers to something called the Time Phased Force Deployment Document - TPFDD - a part of any war plan that basically lays out who and what goes where and when).

Sorry, I was guilty of slack writing there. The "we" I had in mind was my fellow-members of the pro-war camp. I didn't think I needed to stress that point but I should have done, just to avoid being subjected to countless "told you so" comments.

Maybe my memory is being overly selective, but my impression was that most of the anti-war camp was focused on the conventional "Stalingrad" scenarios rather than the aftermath. But feel free to correct me on that.

Clive mate

Don't give me some bloody straw man regrading Stalingrad, goddamit? I have no fucking patience for that bloody crap.

There was plently of motherfucking warning from non-whinging idiot Lefty morons.

More than sufficient. You bloody well don't have any very decent excuses.

Now of course there was the whinging idiot "anti imperialist" drooling moron Left to provide the usual excuse for the gullible.

Am slowly, slowly digging out salient entries from the Lounsbury archives (check the front page sidebar for links).

Maybe my memory is being overly selective, but my impression was that most of the anti-war camp was focused on the conventional "Stalingrad" scenarios rather than the aftermath. But feel free to correct me on that.

Your memory is being overly selective.

Sincerely yours,

Whinging Lefty Who Is Actually Correct Every Once in a While

(and sheesh, as ignorant as I may be of matters military, it seems to me that if the one guy in your Cabinet with the most actual military experience is telling you that you need more resources, you might consider actually paying attention to him.)

Er, not my cabinet, if you're talking about Colin Powell. I'm not American.

Something tells me this isn't going to be a productive conversation. So before everyone starts throwing f-words around, all I'll say is I just wanted to correct the one point about who "we" referred to.

Now you see why I don't have a comments section on my blog.

F-words aside, I think our main point was that the anti-war camp wasn't simply a bunch of pamphlet-waving Lefty ideologue morons. Certainly you invited criticism by making that sweeping Stalingrad generalization, especially here.

Pragmatic concern about the Iraq war (regardless of political inclination/nationality) is what brought many of the Aqoul contributors/regulars together in the first place, way back in 2003.

Er, not my cabinet, if you're talking about Colin Powell. I'm not American.

I meant GWB, not you personally, or even collectively - as far as I know, you weren't the one making decisions about troop and other resource levels in Iraq - and I certainly didn't assume Colin Powell was talking to you personally. I try not to assume people are American without some specific indication of such.

Off-topic, but I commented this over at the Aardvark's place and figured I should put it down somewhere on the site I'm at least theoretically constributing to: Al Jazeera will start English broadcasts on November 15 (finally).

...the anti-war camp wasn't simply a bunch of pamphlet-waving Lefty ideologue morons.

...but I can see why some people would think it was. The pamphlet-waving Lefty ideologue moron crowd effectively overpowered everyone who had more reasoned and/or principled objections to the war. That was probably the main weakness of the anti-war camp: that it somehow turned out represented in the media by loons, like Chomsky, populist-chauvinist sleazeballs, like Chirac. I have plenty of friends who at the time reflexively supported the war plans just because they loathed the people who opposed them.

On the other hand, reasoned discourse didn't really stand a chance in 2002-2003, did it? It was a shouting match from the start, as the war promoters obviously saw their best chance in flag-waving and nationalist hysteria. Perhaps it was inevitable media logic that the "opposing side" would respond in kind, resulting in the gigantic clash of opposing moronisms that we call the Iraq war debate...

You're right, alle (which means we should give Clive a bit of a break here). The fruitbats on both sides did get most of the attention.

That was probably the main weakness of the anti-war camp: that it somehow turned out represented in the media by loons

Also, in all fairness to those who perceived that the anti-war side was represented in the media by loons, most of the anti-war loons at the [numerous] demos I attended were FAR loonier than Chomsky. Exactly what, say, union organizing at a Coca-Cola plant in Venezuela, or marijuana legalization, had to do with opposing the invasion of Iraq, I have no freaking idea, but those viewpoints and more managed to garner time at the podium and/or on-camera. To those of us who WANTED A LITTLE FOCUS, FOR CHRISSAKES, or (gasp!) credibility, even, it was enough to make us shake our heads in despair at the state of the antiwar movement these days.

Sigh...I swear, the left isn't all a bunch of loons, really - just the loudest ones are.

What? Y'all can't see the connection between Mumia Abu-Jamal's conviction by the Man and reasons not to invade Iraq?

Deaf, dumb, and blind......! :-)

That the media gave more play to "loons" than it did to serious critics says more about the media than it does about the left or the anti-war or anti-this-war crowds. People like Col. Lounsbury have to make their points on LiveJournal rather than in the Wall Street Journal because the mainstream media doesn't just pick up random guys off the street that just so happen to know what they're talking about, they want someone with an organization because it's easier for lazy journalists to find such people(never underestimate this point, why else ask Donald Rumsfeld about the war?) and because it makes their raving lunacy seem more official. Until you write a NYT best seller or organize a Rogue Financiers For the Promotion of Economic Literacy and the Prevention of Ignorant Whanking organization, you're never going to be on the media radar screen.

And really, I've never understood why people think that Chompsky is a loon. You might not agree with his politics or his sense of morality, but he makes serious arguments presented in non-sensational ways and based on non-loony scholarship. Do people actually read his stuff or is he painted loony by association because of some of his more noticeable readership(Chavez and "hippies")?

...organize Rogue Financiers For the Promotion of Economic Literacy and the Prevention of Ignorant Whanking organization...

RFPEL-PIW already sounds like a 70s rejectionist PLO faction, so I hope there will be an armed wing and threatening video tapes. And hijackings. ("The RFPEL-PIW's Milton Friedman Brigades demand sound financial management, flat tax and the unconditional privatization of inefficient state businesses within 48 hours -- failure to comply will mean the execution of all hostages, starting with card-carrying Greenpeace members and Frenchmen.)

And really, I've never understood why people think that Chompsky is a loon. You might not agree with his politics or his sense of morality,

I have no problem with his morality, except that it's self-righteously used as cover for his politics -- which, in turn, I have a huge problem with.

but he makes serious arguments

No. Or, well, I suppose that occasionally happens too, but it's drowned out by the sheer volume (in both senses of the word) of his shrill anti-globo, anti-US mumbo-jumbo.

presented in non-sensational ways

No. He's a super-politicized trash talker, not a scholar. He's the David Horowitz of the left. At least since David Horowitz himself stopped being the David Horowitz of the left.

and based on non-loony scholarship.

No. Granted, he does use a lot of interesting and respectable sources, but he slices them up and spreads the quotes around in bizarre new contexts, to fit his own political arguments. (Like saying Jack the Ripper only dealt with live and healthy women.)

Do people actually read his stuff or is he painted loony by association because of some of his more noticeable readership (Chavez and "hippies")?

I just read one of his books, Rogue States or whatever it's called in English, plus a number of articles. That should be quite enough to pronounce him a loon for anyone. Perhaps I've missed some Really Great Book That Would Change My Mind Entirely, and if so, please tell me, but from flipping through other works, it seems to me it's all the same.

"Perhaps I've missed some Really Great Book That Would Change My Mind Entirely, and if so, please tell me"

I haven't real Failed States so I can't say whether or not it's loony, but here are some recommendations:

I found Manufacturing Consent, co-written by Edward S. Herman, to be a very persuasive and non-loony analysis of American news media. Their Propaganda Model offers a perfectly viable explanation for why only certain kinds of voices were heard in the mainstream media in the run up to the Iraq War. The model, wrongly called a "conspiracy theory" uses data to demonstrate a series of what shouldn't be controversial points: that media concentration and corporate ownership of media affect news coverage, that advertisers affect news coverage, that having to depend on government sources for information affects news coverage, that fear of being punished for saying "controversial" things affects news coverage, and that anti-communism(now the cult of "the war on terror") justifies all things affects news coverage. Is any of that loony? Though it was written in 1987, it seems even more applicable today than it was then: media are even more concentrated, advertisers wield even more power, journalists are even more dependent on access to official sources(Judy Miller anyone?), flak machines are even more potent, and American patriotism is all the more unquestionable today than was the case 20 years ago.

Hegemony or Survival is very interesting as well(especially having read it before it became "cool"). While the overarching thesis may be a bit over-dramatic(US actions threaten the survival of humanity), he doesn't actually speak to that much in the book itself and mostly focuses on ho-hum points that should only be controversial to right-bolshies: that the US claims to support democracy while in fact undermining it for economic and political gain; that the US seeks global hegemony, that US foreign policy actions such as undermining international treaties, establishing new norms that legitimize offensive war, weaponizing space, and ignoring international opinion all make the world less safe. If such points make one loony then I guess I'm loony too(in which case I will start up my new organization: the Friedman Mustache Riders).

Djuha [It should not be controversial to say] that the US claims to support democracy while in fact undermining it for economic and political gain; that the US seeks global hegemony, that US foreign policy actions such as undermining international treaties, establishing new norms that legitimize offensive war, weaponizing space, and ignoring international opinion all make the world less safe

Well, all or most of that is true by itself. More or less (sometimes less: for example, the US has truly, really supported democracy abroad lots of times; sometimes for strategic gain, sometimes for idealistic reasons, most often for both -- as would probably any nation in its position).

But Chomsky (and many, many others) aren't satisfied with criticising US foreign policy on its merits: he welds that criticism into ideology, painting the US not just as a hegemonic, sometimes destructive, sometimes self-destructive, but also quite often very constructive, superpower -- a balanced even if fairly critical picture -- but rather as an international baby-eating monster run behind the scenes by shady Big Business Interests who seem to profit mostly from pillaging smaller nations and torturing their citizens. And that, I would say, is loony. It also undermines the fair and to-the-point criticism he often makes on specific policies (eg. visavi East Timor or on the increasingly self-destructive alliance with Israeli nationalism).

The Iraq war debate I think is a good illustration of that -- how the Evil Empire conspiracy-mania of many on the left, certainly including Chomsky, managed to alienate public opinion in what should have been the easiest public debate score of the century.

I'm not saying that critics of Chomsky are necessarily better. Indeed, the Iraq debate again comes in handy as proof that many on the right are just as loony, and argue just as carelessly.

As an aside, I normally enjoy reading for example John Pilger or Robert Fisk. They often tend to end up in the same camp as Chomsky, and I don't share their politics; nor do I tend to agree with the slant they take when reporting.

But they are at least on the ground doing real reporting, and bringing some new facts to light, even if they then tend to politicize it heavily. Th Friedman is another example, though in a different political camp -- I like reading him, pop-political analysis and all, even though he's been ridiculously off the mark lately.

Chomsky, however, just sits in his comfy US office scanning newspaper clip books for stuff that reflects poorly on US foreign policy. The only thing he adds is his private indignation.

But okay, the media book is now officially on my reading list.