Am I first??

Good morning Charles.

mogadishu

Clinton's Calamity

--except for the slanted press

Speaking of statues they have to tear down, I'm awaiting the imminent arrival of coalition forces to tear down the statue of Saddam giving his best Chairman Mao impression standing next to the mosque visible in the Baghdad security camera video.

Perhaps with a split screen of the Iraqi Information Minister being taken away in a straitjacket...

"mogadishu

Clinton's Calamity"

Well, let's be straight here - it was after all a joint Bush I - Clinton calamity.

Regards / GulGnu

-Stabil som fan!

4

yeah, except that's not true

with ac130 gunships, it would have been a whole other ball game

and this decision was made by the Calamitous Clintons

period

Awww, it's just a Bleat. I was hoping for a Screed.

There are plenty of lessons to be drawn from Mogadishu. Those that would rather not learn from from their failures are worse than stupid.

Agree with the term "clinton calamity". Sending troops abroad without armor, artillery and air support is stupidity in the waiting, but what do you expect from a draft dodger.

The father, who lost a son in Somalia, telling Bill he was a disgrace to the presidency and should resign summed up my view on the whole issue. The American media filtered the scene, but the Euro media did not. Anyone else see it?

#8 Buckeye Abroad

Sending troops abroad without armor, artillery and air support is stupidity in the waiting

That's not the problem. The problem was sending troops on a (half-defined) mission without the political will to have it done whatever the cost. Everything else is a consequence.

Caton, gotta agree with you there. The soldiers on the mission performed brilliantly in the face of overwhelming odds, and nearly pulled the mission off.

The idea that the US could get Aidid out with a minimal cost was part and parcel of the thinking throughout the late mid and late 90s. It was part of the peace dividend, and trying to do peace keeping on the cheap.

Peace isn't cheap - you've got to spend money and blood defending the peace (even if it means short, bloody, and violent wars) to eliminate terrorists and thuggish regimes.

IIRC, Clinton's military advisor thought the use of US tanks and APCs would make it appear to be an 'invasion' and the idea was scrubbed...

That's what really cost us, the lack of armor for 'public relations' reasons...

-Daniel

Have our troops torn down that "crossed swords" monument that goes over that roadway, yet? I was up till 3 am last night waiting to see that thing come down.

9:15AM CST - Iran and Kuwaiti media reports three uprisings in Baghdad - of Iraqi civilians against the regime - dozens of Fedayeen killed - FoxNews

The lesson? Never trust a leader who's more worried about public opinion polls than in doing his job correctly.

US forces are in the Parade ground - that is where the crossed swords are.

#9 Caton

The problem was sending troops on a (half-defined) mission without the political will to have it done whatever the cost. Everything else is a consequence.

True. I think Vietnam would expand that statement even more.

I would have thought the marine barracks in Lebanon experience would have changed policy, but I was fooling myself.

Lileks - Agree agree agree. Let's see all of it, and throw in some 9/11 for those with a convenient lack of memory.

OT, VDH in the New York Post on Monday!

[Link: www.nypost.com...]

It did change policy, at least under republican presidents.

BUSH 1: Kick Iraq's ass, using massive force, in GWI.

Clinton: Duh, public relations! Fiasco
Kosovo, another fiasco, sure, we stopped the war, but lack of US involvement in reconstruction, has caused the UN to build a horrid govt in 4 years. We DO NOT want these guys in Iraq...

Bush II: Attack with overwhelming force, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Kept UN out of Afghanistan, had replacement govt ready to go, now it's stable, and starting to work like a nation again. Same will hopefully happen in Iraq.

-Daniel

Another great line from the essay:

One second in war echoes for a decade.

10:15 am EST- Fox is reading Iranian and Kuwaiti newswires which report popular uprising in three sections of Baghdad. Civilians are killing fedayeen and forcing their leaders to flee.

Lileks and Steyn should get together...

#16 Buckeye Abroad

I think Viet-Nam was slightly different. Just like the last phase of the Korean war, there was a political will to lose.

The reason I'm saying this is that, in Korea and in Viet-Nam, the military had stated the winning strategy, and it was rejected by the politicians. If MacArthur had been allowed to credibly threaten the Chinese with a couple of nukes (not dropping 'em), there wouldn't be a North Korea. If the military had been allowed to destroy the Viet-Cong supply lines and bomb the North Viet-Nam dams, the Commies would have surrendered. Instead, in both cases, the politicians decided they didn't want to win.

IMHO, the lesson of Mogadishu is that a Democrat in the Oval Office is a threat to national security.

#18 Danial Joyce: "Kept UN out of Afghanistan, had replacement govt ready to go, now it's stable, and starting to work like a nation again. Same will hopefully happen in Iraq."

Paula J. Dobriansky, Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs, May 7, 2002 :
"And though the U.S. is by far the largest single aid provider to Afghanistan, we are by no means alone. At the Tokyo Conference in January, the international community pledged $4.5 billion for the long-term reconstruction of Afghanistan. Clearly, rebuilding Afghanistan will be a global effort requiring global resources."

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of Afghanistan's president and his representative in southern Kandahar: "What was promised to Afghans with the collapse of the Taliban was a new life of hope and change. But what was delivered? Nothing. Everyone is back in business...There have been no significant changes for people...Today I can say 'we don't take your sons away by force to fight at the front line. But that's about all I can say.''

Who to believe, who to believe?

Lileks is preternaturally gifted. Scathingly funny, unusally observant and empathic, and a dazzyling writer. Awesome.

#24:

1)
"International community" != "UN"

2)
Let's keep our expectations realistic, here.

Afghanistan is never going to become some utopian, Shangri-La paradise where benificent Yetis create a pastoral candyland. Sure, Ahmed wants a better country. Now, he can damn well make it happen himself.

#23 Red Herring
"IMHO, the lesson of Mogadishu is that a Democrat in the Oval Office is a threat to national security."

I was worried sick when Bill won the FIRST time. Give them eight years - see what you get.

Comparing Iraq to Somolia isn't going to achieve anything. Two different goals and in the present case, the military leaders were asked to come up with a comprehensive plan with stated goals. Time will tell whether a rolling start was a good idea but the plan seems to have been well thought out. I saw a piece today on MSNBC about Some Marines who rode across 300 miles of desert in amphibious vehicles because the approach to Baghdad that they are using does not have bridges that can handle APCs. Turns out the amphibious troop carriers work well in sand, though they are a bit uncomfortable. When they got to the river in Baghdad, they found a suitable crossing site and did what Marines are famous for.

#24

Unfortunately, we pretended (perhaps as a gesture to "progressive" international opinion) to immediately install a liberal, democratic regime in Kabul. The closest that Afghanistan has ever come to democracy was under King Muhammed Zahir in the late 1960s and 1970s (and that wasn't all that close); I doubt if a majority of Afghans even remember it.

What we should have done was install Prince Muhammed Zahir (grandson of the former King) as king with an American resident, translate Magna Carta into Pushtun and give it to them as a constitution, and resign ourselves to the fact that it would be a generation or two before anything like democracy evolved.

The lesson of mogadishu for the left and for the enemy is PATIENCE.

At some point in the next 4, 8, 12, or 16 years, another scathingly stupid and narcissistic democrat will enter the White House. At that point, America can be intimidated and frightened out of any place in the world by a few casualties, brought on by a foolhardy PR decision not to look "bad" (read powerful and capable).

Our weakling enemies are craven, but have likely learned the patience of waiting for the Democrats to retake the presidency.

Lileks, Glenn Reynolds, Tim Blair and of course Charles Johnson - 4 of the best bloggers out there.

#31 Joel

Lileks, Glenn Reynolds, Tim Blair and of course Charles Johnson - 4 of the best bloggers out there.

Also there's [Link: www.scrappleface.com,...] there's [Link: www.idontknowbut.blogspot.com,...] and several others I've gone blank on for the moment.

Sorry, I forgot to explain for those who don't know:
ScrappleFace is a satire blog, and I Don't Know But… is a blog on a number of subjects.

Lileks is preternaturally gifted. Scathingly funny, unusally observant and empathic, and a dazzyling writer. Awesome.

Agreed. At the same time, Spunky the Dissident is right--we were promised a Screed! Promised last Wednesday, to be exact. We want Screed! We want Screed! What do we want? (SCREED!) When do we want it? (AS SOON AS REASONABLY PRACTICABLE!)

I'm not sure I agree with Lileks on his "show the carnage" point, though. In today's New York Times, there's an absolutely shattering photo of a young Iraqi boy in a Baghdad hospital, the victim of "a missle" (the caption doesn't say if it was ours or theirs). At least one of his arms is gone, and his abdomen is so badly burned it seems as if it's gone down to the skeletal level. Remarkably, he's alive and conscious, and a woman (his aunt, the caption says) is trying to give him comfort; some sort of reassuring pat on the head, which looks utterly futile as you regard the damage that's been done to him.

You look at this photo and something snaps in your chest.

Now I try to imagine seeing these images, live and in color, every night on the news. I think I might go mad.

We know this war is the right thing to do; we also know that it's killing people. I don't really think we need the latter point rubbed in our faces every day. We know.

“The lesson of Mogadishu: don’t draw any lessons from Mogadishu.”

With all due respect to Lileks the Great (may his mustache never silver) there is a lesson to be learned from Mogadishu: If you plan to take on the United States, you better wait until there's a Democrat in the Whitehouse.

#30

Sorry, hobgoblin, you beat me to it.

#24

DFI, in defense of Daniel Joyce (full disclosure: he may or may not be my brother) there are others in Afghanistan who are too thrilled by the opportunity they see to waste their time sniveling and waiting for government officials to make life better for them. Though individual initiative and entrepeneurship are concepts foreign to most Europeans, these strategies have actually been used in the US with some success.

Read about it here:

He did it all in the midst of political chaos, with frequent security concerns, without the help of a bank to lend him money, and in an investment climate that can only be described as extremely challenging.

But Latifa, a longtime Kabul resident, says that where others saw unacceptable risks, he saw the opportunity of a lifetime.

"There is so much money to be made in Afghanistan now," he said in English learned in a Pakistani refugee camp. "The country has been held back for 25 years, and now is the time to invest and do business. Afghans are very good at this -- we've been doing it since the time of the Silk Road."

I can sense your eagerness to believe Ahmend Wali Karzi, so let's concede his point. Would you nonetheless agree that Afghanistan's propsects for genuine nationhood are better today than, say, before October 2001?

Hey look. Four in a row.

Ahh, I see Arab News has retroactively scooped you

Exclusive: US Ignores Mogadishu Lessons

[Link: www.arabnews.com...]