LAT Analysis: Behind troop surge, a Neocon force

[DeepModem Mom]

Analysis: Behind troop surge, a Neocon force
By Peter Spiegel, Times Staff Writer
January 3, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Ever since Iraq began spiraling toward chaos, the war's intellectual architects -- the so-called neoconservatives -- have found themselves under attack in Washington policy salons and, more important, within the Bush administration.

Paul Wolfowitz, who was the Defense Department's most senior neocon, was shipped off to the World Bank. His Pentagon colleague Douglas Feith departed for academia. John Bolton left the State Department for the United Nations.

But other neocons have moved back into the mainstream of steering Iraq policy. A key part of the new Iraq plan that President Bush is expected to announce next week -- a surge in U.S. troops coupled with a more focused counterinsurgency effort -- has been one of the chief recommendations of these neocons since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

This group -- which includes William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard magazine, and Frederick Kagan, a military analyst at the American Enterprise Institute -- was expressing concerns about the administration's blueprint for Iraq even before the invasion almost four years ago. In these neoconservatives' view, not enough troops were being set aside to stabilize the country. They also worried that the Pentagon had formulated a plan that concentrated too heavily on killing insurgents rather than securing law and order for Iraqi citizens.

They have long advocated for a more classic counterinsurgency campaign: a manpower-heavy operation that would take U.S. soldiers out of their large bases dotted across the country and push them into small outposts in troubled towns and neighborhoods to interact with ordinary Iraqis.

Until now, it was an argument that had fallen on deaf ears....

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-neocons4jan04,0,779950.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[illinoisprogressive]

1. don't you wish the neocons could be prison cons.

[Erika]

2. It is civil war

If the neo-cons want to perform genocide on the Sunnis, let them have the guts to say so.

[EFerrari]

3. When did they ever care about Iraq, Iraqis or Americans. n/t

[Erika]

5. The neocons have always thought the more Islamfacists

dead, the better. Our troops, sadly have been seen as dispensable by the GOP ruling class.

[EFerrari]

7. The neocons have always forwarded this fiction while

counting the contracts they brokered.

[Imagevision]

4. Of course it's the neocons, they then march Bush out to parrot them...!

[Mind_your_head]

6. The Neocons have successfully scattered their 'seed'

off to the far corners ..... they have infiltrated at every level. However, their ideology is severely flawed and hence they will be long remembered in history as the Neocon Farce. History will record that hundreds of thousands will have suffered b/c of their experiment with their ideology. Truly sickening what they have wrought.

[ConsAreLiars]

8. Ideologues who fail turn into Jim Jones.

They think a more extreme form of the same insane policy will do yield "better" results. Monsters.

[Contrite]

9. How very Nazi-esque

"What you need for counterinsurgency has been pretty clear for some time: You need to protect the population and get the population to fight the insurgents with you, or at least inform on them," Adelman said. "The fight is over the population, it's not over getting the enemy."

[madmusic]

10. K&R

[Up2Late]

11. Absolutely, if any doesn't believe this report, check out this Daily Show interview...

with "The Weekly Standard" magazine's editor William Kristol at the links below. Kristol starts spewing all this ridiculous BS, but then Jon give him a absolutely BRUTAL beat-down! It's GREAT!

Bill Kristol Pt. 1
<http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/index.jhtml?ml_video=79869>

Bill Kristol Pt. 2
<http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/index.jhtml?ml_video=79868>

BTW, if the video at these Comedy Central links don't work for you, you might try some of these steps.

First, I could never get Comedy Central's new "Motherload" player to work until I upgraded to Firefox 2.x, which comes with the new Adobe Flash Player v9.

Also, you might need to turn off, or switch back to the WindowsXP firewall and turn off any Pop-up blockers. That's what I had to do to get it to work.

Or, if none of that works, here are some "back door" links to the same videos:

Bill Kristol Pt. 1 -- Editor of the Weekly Standard Bill Kristol thinks Jon likes to bring him in as a punching bag.
<http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=79869>

Bill Kristol Pt. 2 -- Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol discusses the Bush Administration's handling of the insurgency.
<http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=79868>

<http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/browseresults.jhtml?showId=934>

[applegrove]

12. I fail to see how more troops will do anything at this point. Iraq is in

civil war. There will just be more killing. Which is a neocon policy. Once the USA got into Iraq with too few troops to keep violent factions from forming and debathed the whole army..it was lost."Engaging" at a local level means killing at a local level. USA doesn't have the army to maintain such a force. This is a renewed plan for long term war in Iraq. Not a plan for creating local ties and handing out candy.

[Toots]

13. Take US troops out of their big bases and spread them around the country

in small outposts... Yep that's the ticket. That should definitely put an end to American deaths. With American arrogance at it's peak we should win many friends, especially with our "We would rather be feared than loved" attitude.