Latest on the War

[grysar]

The UK is making plans to be out of Iraq within a year. The reason to for the pull out is to better focus on Afghanistan. Good for them. (Hat tip: Sullivan).

Kevin Drum argues that the Supporting the troops line of argument won't work for the Democrats. He cites a Spencer Ackerman article that makes the argument in longer form. In short, the military is generally more hawkish than the Dems. Majorities do not support withdrawal even if there is increasing discontent.

I buy this argument. It's important to listen to the full range of voices from the military, but disagree with them is acceptable and at times necessary. Ultimately, phrasing everything as support of the troops when we don't have the backing of the troops makes us look like posers. "Strength" is not a value highly correlated with posing.

The Washington Post has a good article on the impacts of torture on interrogators. It has some really interesting interviews including a really sketchy British interrogator that had worked in Northern Ireland. I rather like the American who stopped crossing the line after reading a holocaust memoir. His discussion in a bar at the end showed that he really gets it. Torturing the innocent isn't the only problem. Torturing the guilty is also an evil act.

Finally, the surge is failing. It's main success in the past few months was bringing down the number of sectarian killings in Baghdad. Unfortunately, it looks like the Shiite militias are done laying low as the numbers are up again. U.S. casualty counts are up, but that was fairly guaranteed given the new more aggressive posture. I still think the new counterinsurgency methods are solid, but we're in a deteriorating situation that's beyond our control.

Comments

[capfox.livejournal.com]

That article on interrogators was very good, and very thought-provoking. Even the ones who really feel that their work was essential and don't regret know that they can't live normally afterwards.

All the war stuff... I kinda agree with Biden, that the way that the war will be ended will be by electing a Democratic president. I do have hopes for the Democratic strategy in general at this point, and if Biden's right, man, that'll be a Democratic majority next time, but I can't really see it happening now. Well, more pressure, and a bit more time, and I s'pose we'll see.

[ninjadebugger.livejournal.com]

Democrat control will be just as bad as Republican control. I say we give them control for two years, then turn at least one house of Congress over to the Republicans, so that the government mostly comes to a standstill. They do the least damage that way.

[grysar.livejournal.com]

Just as bad how? I mean the Clinton years were better on every front, including the two years of single party control.

If you don't want Democratic objectives done (big changes in health care, environmental stuff), I understand, but the past few have really been a new low for the country and not part of the normal cycle of single party rule.

[lilinthra.livejournal.com]

Unrelated to this topic, but just commenting to say the OCR idea worked. The error rate only gets low enough to be usable when the zoom is a bit higher, but this will still save me a lot of work

[grysar.livejournal.com]

Sweet. I should probably advertise that more broadly. How high did you have to take the zoom? This doesn't really surprise me, when dealing with scanned documents the resolution is critical for getting it to work.

[lilinthra.livejournal.com]

Slightly over the width of the text on the page. I tried it with one of the handout pages so far since it wasn't a mix of box text and GM text.

Mind doing me a favor? Can you send me the Lore DC & entries from the Yugoloth, Corruptor of Fate from the MM4? I need it for tomorrow night.

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

I completely misread that as "Yugoloth, Corruptor of Files." Which is demonic it its own way...