Countering Lind-dinistas - if the mission is impossible, don't blame me

[TheCurmudgeon]

If something is known to be 'impossible' beforehand by the technical experts designated to implement it, and the cost of implementation is measured in human lives, is there not an ethical responsibility to protest?

Some, although not in the administration, did protest. The quote in post #5 is from one voice arguing against Larry Diamond, one of the architects of the Bush administration’s plan. But that plan was built largely on the belief that we won the Cold War because democracy is the best system in existence and everyone wants to be like us, not that Communism had inherent economic detriments. It was largely blind faith*:

Pundits, policymakers, and presidential candidates have offered opinions on the pace of political change in Iraq, but they have cited neither wellestablished theories of democratization nor rigorous social science evidence to
support their views.4 Scholars have an obligation to address such policyrelevant questions as how long it will take for Iraq to democratize, but thus far comparative, theoretically informed empiricism has been notably absent.

The result is confusion about both Iraq’s present accomplishments and its future course. Elections are lauded as symbolic of the arrival of democracy, but every democratic theorist agrees that there is far more to democracy than elections.
The voter turnout of the courageous Iraqi people is said to signal the triumph of democracy, but history shows that it has never been the unwillingness to vote that has prevented democracy, but rather the failure to honor
the results of those elections.5 An Iraqi-headed government may embody sovereignty, but scholars of democracy are unanimous that the tricky part of maintaining the monopoly on the legitimate use of force lies not in creating instruments
of power, but in constraining its illegitimate exercise. That requires a web of respected institutions, mobilized interests, and deeply rooted values, not foreign armies. Immediate problems—forming a government, holding an
election, or maintaining security—have been addressed as if their resolution would be decisive in engineering a democratic Iraq, without consulting the historical record of democratization elsewhere.

Long Time Coming: Prospects for Democracy in Iraq

I suspect that if there were those in the adminstration that disagreed with the potential for success they met the same fate as GEN Shinseki.

*Interestingly, it is the same blind faith that people everywhere think and act just like Americans are currently using when examining the crisis in the Ukraine or how to deal with Syria. For some Americans, the idea all people are created equal equates to all people have the same morals and values we do. It is part of the American myth.