One of the principal objections I had about the ability to "vote down" was that it was guaranteed to result in retaliatory vote wars.

Anonymous voting would help with that concern, at least.

Leave the voting procedures as they are. They serve a very useful function, IMO. They are the canary in the coal mine, if you will, of this site becoming ObWings. When this place gets so petty that we are having junior-high fights over who voted for who and who sat next to whom at lunch it's time to go.

and they make it pallet-sized for older kids.

a large Ace Bandage. First; with the kids tied up, you're gonna want to keep fresh that extra food they don't eat. You'll need the Saran Wrap for that. Second; the Ace Bandage carries the benefit of making it look like you're sorta taking care of the little darlings. I mean hey...who's to say they don't have a ginormous sprain?

http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=slv8-mdp&p=shrink%20wrap

never worked in the shipping industry.

Not Bush's -- or, really, even Rumsfeld's -- job to know the capabilities of their Armed Forces. Civilian control of the military and all that.

The Services are supposed to advise them honestly and accurately of capabilities and probablities. That obviously was not done or was not done at all effectively

It's also up to the services to be prepared to execute all the contingency plans. The plan on Iraq has been around for years. They got the attack part right -- then muffed actions after the attack. That simple.

Note also that the Intel community let the Admin and the Services down with respect to intel from inside Iraq pertaining to the attack and the aftermath.

Name me one military person that was "fired."

See also my response to Inigo above.

The problem with the looting was not knowing what to do and command failure to react promptly. The troop problem was not one of sheer numbers; it was due to the fact that DoD (generic, we do not know who; I've heard from several folks it was levels below Rumsfeld) messed with the Time Phased Force Deployment List which specified what units would land where and when and moved the Military Police -- who would have been the looting stoppers -- way back on the list. they weren't where they were supposed to be at the right time. There was also a command failure in not stopping it with the troops on hand -- the reasons for that are complex, I suspect and not fully known

You are absolutely correct on the disbanding of the Army and Police. Bremer and his Deputy, another State Department type have taken full credit for that decision and stand by it. Idiots. The US Army (well, a lot of guys at the Colonel level...) wanted to put the Iraqi Army in barracks, train 'em and pay 'em to stay out of it. I'm prepared to accept that an echelon above Bremer was responsible for that dumb decision and that it may have been on the advice of Chalabi -- we just don't know for sure. I do believe we can be sure that was NOT the US Army solution to the problem...

You are correct that those three issues are a big part of the problem; there are other things but those are unquestionably biggies. No MPs, apparently DoD -- who not known; the allied fact of not stopping the looting -- Command failure on the ground. De Baathification, Bremer and possibly higher, who not known. Inadequate Troop strength, arguable; I think there were enough but they were poorly employed, others disagree, it's not easily answered.

If the Army had possessed doctrine for occupation, nation building and counterinsurgency, they would have trained for those missions. Lacking the doctrine, no one in Iraq in 2003 (other than a very, very few Viet Nam veterans) had any clue of what was required. They had no idea what they would face; they had never trained for it. That's one point. May seem insignificant to you but it is not -- Army units do what they train to do; a good simile is taking a bunch of Cops to put out a fire -- or telling the Firemen to go be Cops. Jobs are jobs.

What they had trained for was killing the maximum number of people in the shortest time and they were very good indeed at that. Probably better than anyone else in the world. They had also trained excessively in the "force protection" mode -- "do not let US Soldiers get killed needlessly; avoid it when you can." Combine those two things and you get trigger happy kids with no fire discipline who run around in armor and steel helmets all the time looking threatening (think Star Wars), shoot at anything that moves and kill a lot of innocent people needlessly while sustaining very few casualties themselves. Iraqis can count; they see their body count-- they see ours in the MSM; that makes us double ugly to a lot of them. That's another point.

Combine those two points and you have the first eighteen months or so in Iraq. Woeful mishandling of a lot of things from unnecessary killing of civilians due to lack of training, too much emphasis on force protection, inadequate patrolling (force protection again) and lack familiarity with the customs of the country -- all those due to that lack of doctrine and training.

In fairness to the Army, those are institutional problems and do not reflect on the guys on the ground but rather on their senior leadership for the previous 30 years *(that includes, BTW, Colin Powell, Wesley Clark, Tommy Franks and a host of others) who insisted that the Army fought big wars and did not do that other stuff. That is also a lick on 30 years of Administrations and SecDefs from both parties who allowed that to occur -- with particular emphasis on Bush 41 and Clinton who were in office after the Cold War came to an end and the nature of the future threat was quite obvious.

I could go on -- but the short answer to your question is simply have doctrine for and train for ALL the missions you're likely to encounter, do not overemphasize 'force protection,' get rid of the "can Do" attitude and be willing to exercise the moral strength to tell the SecDef and the President that to do what they want will entail this, that or the other thing. I have no knowledge this latter was not done; if it was and the Prez says, "I hear you; go anyway." You go.

Nor am I giving Rumsfeld a pass. I'm saying he should be held accountable (through Bush and the ballot box, stupid is still not illegal here) for his errors but not for those of his various subordinates. That no real thought to the post attack plan was given is obviously true; the problem is that we don't know enough to say who erred.

Unless you know more flies on the wall than I do, we do not know in full what the initial plan was. I've heard from some I trust that it was to be attack, topple Saddam, leave the government(-) functioning and be gone in short order -- but the decision was made to remain (about day five after Baghdad fell. What went on with Garner is a part clue, strange timing that) -- and to disband the Iraqi Army and Police. Bremer and his deputy have claimed responsibility for the latter decision, dumb as it was. Thus, I don't think wet know enough to say your first paragraph is correct. Chalabi apparently did have Wolfotwit's ear but not anyone else's (Bankers like bankers???).

My personal belief is that Franks isn't nearly as swift as he thinks he is but was swift enough to realize the potential for damage. He apparently fought Rumsfeld all the way to Bush to raise the troop strength from 90K to 250K (good for him) and he was certainly smart enough to say "I'll take Baghdad for you but I want to retire as soon as I do that" (boo). Rumsfeld apparently bought that. So we can agree on the conclusion of your second paragraph.

Mixed bag on the third one. Bush upped the troop strength, a plus.

Someone apparently changed a quick troop departure to a stay, possibly correct either way but we don't know why. A question remains...

Rumsfeld interfered with the force structure and force deployment list, a minus. He apparently second guessed or micro managed things early on, a minus. Wolfotwits and Feith are idiot, are a part of Cheney's entourage and were and are big minuses.

The Army didn't have any training or doctrine for occupation, nation building or counterinsurgency, an institutional failing and a big minus. The Army did not halt the early looting --even participated in it, that was a Command responsibility, pure and simple, a big minus.

Not mentioned by you are the intelligence problems. Egg enough for everyone here. Saddam flat told us what he was going to do; release the prisoners from jails; arm the populace; resist in the streets; fight an insurgency. The National Command authority missed that, the Intel folks missed it and the Armed forces missed it. That's an all around minus for everyone.

Not a viable strategic approach. The strategy is a notch above all that. Attacking Iraq may have been a strategic error; we'll have to wait and see on that. It will be another 10 years or so before there's any real clarity on that. Strategy is the job of Bush and Rumsfeld, assisted by the Army -- who have an absolute obligation to give those two their best advice on capabilities. My guess is that the satisfy the boss mantra was operational and they did not do that -- in fairness, if the plan was in fact changed, they may have. We don't know and so cannot assess where the failure lies.

Those failures you cite were all were operational level failures; That is not the job of either Bush or Rumsfeld; that's the Armed Forces' job assisted by State and the Intel Community. All erred. Rumsfeld did interfere at that level, not his job and he screwed some things up in doing so -- but the bulk of the operational failures were those of the US Army. After almost 40 years of service with them in uniform and as a civilian, it pains me to say that but it needs to be said.

OK, then. You'll need *a lot* of string.

but I can give you some general advice:

- here's the phones supported by iSync (I assume you have a newer Mac running OS X) Print this list out and take it with you when you shop.

- Go to your local Cingular store with the list and see what they offer. I wish I could give you better advice, but what makes a good phone is such a personal thing that I'm not sure if any recommendations from other people would really make a difference. They will probably be happy to sell you the hottest and most expensive phone out there, take down the information on the model you like, then go home and google reviews of it to see if there are any red flags (like if it doesn't work with Macs!). When you get it down to two or three models, let me know and I'll see what I can find out about them.

Hope this helps.

I still own a prehistoric V60i.

I love it. Monochrome screen. No camera. No ringtones.

I'd only replace it with a bare-bones razr, with no external screen, and preferably with a black or deep blue or green laquer finish and a small Motorola logo which would glow different colors according to the category of the caller.

Definitely no camera or any of the rest of that junk. Just the phone. I don't care if it costs the same or more than a razr. I just don't want the junk. Makes me feel like an indian who sold his soul for trinkets.

n/t

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