Time’s Iraq correspondent – Michael Ware – is speaking on CNN right now, and he’s flatly declaring that Iraq is a lost cause.
“The great lie of his address is the success in Iraq – the only way out is alternative energy.”
Here’s an interesting question – is he right, and are those like me, who may talk to a few Iraqis and read military bloggers and think we’re doing better than CNN and Time show us – flatly wrong?
Or, is it that he’s wrong, and those – like, say Matthew Yglesias, who read mainstream analysis and think we’re doing worse than CNN and Time show us – wrong?
An interesting question.
[Update: Tucker Carlson (?) on CNBC thinks the only issue is whether we’re too embarassed in our loss. ]
Marc,
I’m going to have to along with you on this one!
Mike
The US wounded per month has been trending lower for more than a year now. Heck, for about 6 months now, Iraqi casualties both civilian and military have been trending lower. I know that that is militarily meaningless, but as the continued violence seems to be the only measure the press is interested in in whether we have won or lost, I find it interesting that only now as the violence is wanning that any one thinks we’ve definitively lost. Of course, pretty much everyone opposed to the war has been convinced that we were losing from the first day of the war, so I’m not sure that this is new development. The only new development is that they are willing to publicly state it.
I believe that the press may be trying to pull another Walter Cronkite trick. I don’t think it is going to work this time, boys.
I’ll believe the war is lost only when the military says it is lost. The big deceit in Vietnam was that the soldiers had turned against the war long before the public was made aware of it. The soldiers knew the real story long before it became public knowledge. The truth about the situation was concealed. Now, the public has turned against a war before the military has, and I for one can’t help but feel that the public doesn’t have the whole story. This time, I don’t feel that it is the government doing the concealing. Not with a midterm election coming up and little bad economic news to sling.
But my feeling is this – If we’ve actually lost this war after enduring such little difficulty and light (though tragic) loss of life for an operation of this size, then its game over. If we’ve lost this war, we’ll never be able to prosecute a war successfully again no matter what the stakes. That elusive martial spirit will have fled, and we might as well give up and become the sort of joke that the French and Italian armed forces have become. I mean, let’s just make the Left favorite’s comparison – Vietnam. The combat troops were bearing the between 500-2000 deaths per month. That’s between greater than 1% of the combat force per month (the supporting troops were relatively safe), or about 12% per year. That rate of casualties was sustained for nearly 5 years. By comparison, the Iraq conflict is producing casualty rates for a similar ammount of troops exposed to combat of roughly 70 deaths per month, a full order of magnitude lower than the Vietnam war, and its only been sustained at that level for less than 3 years. If this war was lost, I’m afraid I don’t understand the metrics of defeat that anyone is using to make the measurement.
If the military comes out and says, “We can’t sustain this conflict with the current National commitment of material and manpower”, and there seems to be a general consensus of that amongst commander’s in the field, generals offer thier resignation, etc. that’s one thing. You take your lumps. But, if the press tries to impose a humiliation on America for its own political purposes, don’t worry about my embarassment. Embarassment won’t be the feeling I’ll be feeling.
I have certainly wondered just what the facts were, but just measured by the casualties I can’t see how anyone can call the war lost. I think the President is also right in pointing out all the checkpoints the country has passed through: invasion, transitional council, first election and sovreignity, constitution, second election. And the last poll results I saw didn’t reflect an Iraq caught up in defeat. Furthermore, the Kurds seem to be doing fine, the south somewhat less so due to the militias and the Brits’ relaxed attitude. I will go out on a limb and say things are going fairly well.
Now, as to Michael Ware, I don’t know the man or what his coverage has been like, but I do recall that the head in country fellow for Newsweek was being interviewed in the street the night after Uday and Qusay were killed, or was it when Saddam was captured, time slips away, but anyway, the celebratory firing started up and this fellow said the Iraqi were so upset they were attacking the Americans. Pshaw.
The vast differences in views is certainly unsettling, but in this case I think the journalists are off somewhere in la-la land. Recall that some 35% of the American people also think we are in a depression even though the unemployment rate is under 5%. Wierd, huh? These are strange times. We will see. Someone is certainly going to end up looking foolish in the history books.
For the Media the war in Afghanistan was lost right before Kabul fell. Sy Hersh predicted a quagmire one day before Kabul fell and the Taliban fled. Either Time or Newsweek predicted a quagmire and defeat the day before Baghdad fell.
For people like Amanpour, or others who preferred various dictators and anti-American strongmen, because they kept ruthless order by killing thousands of people a month, then yes the War is lost and Iraq is a quagmire. Because it’s not run by their favorite strongman.
No, all evidence suggests that while IEDs and snipers can kill Americans, Iraqi terrorists and bandits cannot stand up to US forces in a firefight for more than the amount of minutes it takes for air cover to blow them apart. There is no place the US forces cannot go in force. MOST of the country is a quick death for terrorists out in the open, exposed.
After Saddam was gone, there was going to be a civil war and THAT was as predictable as the Calendar. We’ve seen it right from the start.
The Press coverage is misleading, lying, or simply plain wrong because reporters don’t understand the military, force, or third world societies. They hate and loathe GWB, and to a lesser extent the military who they view as war criminals and “ineffective” if they can’t magically kill all the bad guys (but without, well really killing or hurting anyone). The Media also dislikes America and the American dream or aspirations, and hates the idea of democracy and accountability in Iraq. This is why they run “celebratory” pictures of the executions of election workers and employ terrorists as stringers.
The media REFUSES to embed with the Military, the best and safest way to see the country, because they wish to avoid at all costs reporting the bravery, skill, courage, and success of the military. They don’t cover the North because it’s mostly peaceful and prosperous.
If we can’t win in Iraq we might as well surrender to bin Laden and become his slaves. Many in the Media believe it will be no big deal, that bin Laden is some colorful guy who will just stay in his corner of the world and only occasionally kill Americans (who doubtless deserve it being little Eichmans).
I’ve never been in the military, but I’ve hired lots of guys who have. Then never know when to quit. It’s their best trait. You cannot find a more honest and ethical cadre anywhere else in the USA.
Probably the globe, and I’d include the vatican in the preceeding statement. As for the political side of the equation, now that’s a quagmire!
john.
Depends on the criteria for winning and losing. Iraq will not be as well governed as Switzerland, or even Louisiana. There will be more violence in Iraq than there is in Syria or Saudi Arabia. The Kurds will govern their own area quite well and pretend to be an Iraqi province just to keep the Turks off their backs. The Sunnis are like white Southerners in the 1960s or Afrikaners in the 1980s. They know they were on the wrong side of history; but if they realize that they will never be able to shoot their way back to the good old days, they will move on. The Shia will be torn between democrats and theocrats, just like their brethren in Iran. Once US troops are gone, the media won’t care. Americans will probably perceive this as a loss, and will not be willing to enlist in the neocon dream of a democratic Arabia. The next time foreigners inflict heavy civilian casualties on the US as on 9/11, this country will turn its back on the world.
_I’ve never been in the military, but I’ve hired lots of guys who have. Then never know when to quit. It’s their best trait. You cannot find a more honest and ethical cadre anywhere else in the USA._
Thank You, John, you have done most excellent.
I’m with celebrim – it’s not for the media to call and never has been. Bush did good for the military last night when he stated that the war will be decided by the military generals and planners, not by the politicians. Hope that holds up because our military is doing just fine. And it boils down to essentially your predicament AL – a few Iraqi’s and military bloggers. Are they truthful? – Yes, by any stretch of the imagination. And they are overwhelmingly supportive of their own mission. The millblogs are something we never had before – and it may mean the difference between staying in or cutting and running- as politicians will do on occasion.
Uh Jimbo, I’m from Louisiana. I think you are wrong. Louisiana has never been “well-governed”. Poor choice. Pick another state – any state.
How many significant wars in history have been fought without casulties? Just wondering as I don’t know.
Ware is a moron and his point is equally moronic. If our oil consumption dropped to zero tomorrow, how would that materially affect the campaign short of dropping the value of Iraqi oil and making their job _more_ difficult.
There is however, a hint of panic in the air. The acute cause is the wounding of a major journalist in Iraq, which as the troops have sarcastically put it is the media equivalent of losing a marine division. When its just red state rambo wannabes getting blown up its a statistic. When a handsome anchor is involved, suddenly we are in crisis. Amazingly self-absorbed, even by media standards.
The chronic symptom is the problem that we havent lost yet. And we may be winning, but too slowly to make a decent story out of it. Thats a major disaster for journalism- no story. If we hang in Iraq for another couple years, casualties and troop levels trending down but trickling in as Iraq rights itself democratically, the media faces a nightmare scenario. We need to lose _now_ if decent headlines are going to be eeked out of this war and an acceptable number of Pulizters handed out. This media offensive is a last ditch effort to save a failing campaign.
Hmm, lots of comments that really nail the situation and one minor clarification to make. We’ll begin with the clarification:
tblubird, Uncle Jimbo picked Louisiana pecisely _because_ it was and is so poorly governed. He’s saying that _even_ Louisiana would be a step up from where Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries will end up. He’s likely correct.
Now, the “bullseye club”. Celebrim:
bq. “Of course, pretty much everyone opposed to the war has been convinced that we were losing from the first day of the war, so I’m not sure that this is new development. The only new development is that they are willing to publicly state it.”
Bulls-eye. And of course, we heard the same chorus pre-Afghanistan. Only change I’d make would be to note that they believed in American failure in Iraq before the war even started. Which is why Jim R’s reminder re: recent predictions of defeat that turned out to be idiotic was apropos. The best sentence in his comment, and the one that sums it all up without really much need to postulate conpiracies beyond that:
bq. “The Press coverage is misleading, lying, or simply plain wrong because reporters don’t understand the military, force, or third world societies.”
Bulls-eye.
Most reporters are indeed 0 fer 3 on that trio, and it matters. The difference is that guys like Michael Yon show up in theater now, and it becomes obvious just how much those things matter (for the record, I think Michael is only 2 fer 3 but the improvement was still huge).
Uncle Jimbo was, IMO, partly right and partly wrong. His bulls-eye:
bq. “There will be more violence in Iraq than there is in Syria or Saudi Arabia. The Kurds will govern their own area quite well and pretend to be an Iraqi province just to keep the Turks off their backs. The Sunnis are like white Southerners in the 1960s or Afrikaners in the 1980s. They know they were on the wrong side of history; but if they realize that they will never be able to shoot their way back to the good old days, they will move on.”
Bulls eye. and we’re seeing early indications that this is exactly what’s beginning to happen. He adds:
bq. “The Shia will be torn between democrats and theocrats, just like their brethren in Iran.”
Actually, the Iranians aren’t all that torn – only a very repressive government apparatus that sits beyond the rule of law or election makes the outcome doubtful. I’ll add that even many of the Iraqi mullahs are NOT theocrats, and agree with Sistani that trying to be theocrats just drags religion to politics’ inevitable levels of stupidity.
I see religious parties playing a role to be sure, so I see the comment as correct – but polls are pretty consistent in Iraq that support for theocracy is low. Ethnic balancing will push it hard to stay that way, too, because the Kurds and Sunnis will never buy. Those constraints are worth mentioning.
Where Uncle Jimbo is flat-out wrong, I believe:
bq. “The next time foreigners inflict heavy civilian casualties on the US as on 9/11, this country will turn its back on the world.”
I believe the next heavy casualties attack will change the WAY Americans choose to WAGE the war – the Iraq resconstruction model would, I believe, be replaced by “those who choose to mess with us or who can’t control their own countries will pay, and fixing the aftermath will be their problem.” It may also bring the domestic front of the war to white-hot intensity. But the “correlation of forces” would not be friendly to the isolationists at that point, and salami tactics could certainly put the America-haters in the crosshairs and force some changes in their traditional power bases. Belmont’s “Mordor”:http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/2004/03/mordor-possible-electoral-defeat-of.html thesis, in other words.
That happened to only a limited extent post-9/11, but there have been some quiet (and in some cases, not so quiet) tectonic shifts since then on both right and left that leave the ground for that sort of thing a lot better prepared. I grok that you see a pile of tinder awaiting the match for isolationism, but consider what other tinder piles might be out there – and how big _they_ are.
Hopefully, this will remain an academic debate between two of us who disagree. Realistically, I believe we’ll find out at some point who was right.
Finally, re: the US force level in Iraq…
Precisely because Iraq has neighbours like Iran and Syria with large professional militaries and hostile postures, the USA will not be gone from Iraq within the next 15 years at least. I believe the USA has a far higher change of being out of South Korea 20 years from now than it does of being out of Iraq.
The nature of their mission may change, the number of troops may change, and where they sit in the country (i.e. in bases away from populated areas) may change, but I find it hard to envisage any scenario in which there are less than 40,000 US troops there, plus a couple of air wings which will become the most important element.
One subtle but very important measure of success in Iraq: watch the milbloggers to learn that we are now teaching the Iraqi forces to conduct operations at the battalion level. Soon that will be at the division level — and realize that they also now have a new military academy set up with US advice that will graduate professional officers – not political appointees or tribal advocates.
Next, go back and see what a central and important role West Point played in the development of a national identity for the US, especially in the 19th century. As the history department there says, “Much of the history we teach was made by the people we taught….” — and they don’t just mean military history.
West Point was also the first college to teach civil engineering at a professional level. The Academy’s grads provided the bulk of expertise to build roads, bridges etc. as the frontier moved west.
So both at a leadership level and in terms of infrastructure creation, our academy was a critical resource for national growth and success. The academies we’ve help build in both Afghanistan and Iraq will do the same for their countries and will contribute to the long-term creation of effective societies, stable economies built on skills and infrastructure and representative, responsible governance there.
Robin, a very interesting angle. The comments brigade is really on today…
It’s amazing that the Iraqis are consistently more optimistic than the US media. Perhaps the Iraqis know something?
Celebrim: You really need to ween yourself off the Vietnam analogy. The soldiers did not know the war was lost before the press started telling everyone.
Tet was the defining moment and the North and Vietcong were soundly thrashed.
The press decided early on that Tet was the end as far as the South was concerned and never changed its mind even after the true facts were know.
The real comparison with today is that the press became invested in defeat early on and will not change its mind until the truth is shoved down its throat.
Hopefully, this will occur before they convince everyone of the “truth” of their enemy propoganda.
Since there seems to be no better place on the front page to put this, here it is:
Nelson Ascher is back!
Michael Ware’s flippant, empty remark is typical of those whose breath and depth of analysis is confined to what is said and done today. And, as with Ware, it’s typical of the ratings seeking, paycheck collecting preeners to identify some momentous failure in each word or deed.
Since 9/11 we have failed, dropped the ball, quagmired, lost, goofed up, and failed again, all along the road to where we are today — assisting in final arrangements for a functioning alternative for Saddam’s regime and putting the last touches on the country’s ability to secure and maintain their freedom.
Are we done? Surely not. Could the Iraqi situation flip back? It’s possible, particularly if we take our finger off its pulse and don’t notice the if or when of the good guys losing their desire or strength to keep it on the right track.
Ware’s remark completely misses the mark because he grounds his argument on what he thinks is his keen ability to match two cards in his game of fishing for the next declarable failure. He would have been much more insightful if he had noted that Bush was channeling Rumsfeld’s remark going with what you’ve got available. While it can be seen as indications of failure, it’s also a testament to life itself.
As an analogy, the US did not enter WWII in 1939 because the will to do so wasn’t available. FDR did as much as was possible based on what will was available and quite a bit more than what will would have allowed by not telling us. I think, and I may be wrong, that no matter how much FDR might have tried, he would not have been able to muster the resolve to act earlier than Dec 7, ’41, and may have been wise not to, because it might have damaged that which we did do. In any case, the allies failed their way through WWII to victory.
It’s not Bush’s fault we have spent the last 25 years or so having presidents declare we must wean ourselves off imported oil only to see them fail because, for example, Kennedy and Kerry are opposed to wind generated electricity when that idea exceeds their and their comfortable neighbors’ will to have it. Same with ANWAR. Bush tried in 2001 and off and on since, but the will still has not been sufficient. He tried again yesterday, now that it is an extremely important issue vis-a-vis Iran. It is interesting that today we have a significant majority who are determined to deny Iran nuclear capabilities, and, likely, an unanimous opinion that we don’t want $120/bbl oil but have nowhere near the will to take the actions necessary to address both with a come hell or high water energy policy, much less than any kind of policy above and beyond a normal trajectory towards its achievement. (Not that an energy independence policy is the end all for the problem.)
I do not think that is Bush’s fault. I say it’s your fault. You say its my fault. She says its anyone fault but her’s. Bush has to live with that and make the best of what is becoming an impossible situation. And we all have an opinion on that effort, too.
Personally, I think that Michael Ware’s effort to ply the cards representing the myriad of what is said and done to find a matching pair, was a miserable failure. That’s partly because of the demand for him to be insightful and his unconscious desire for a Walter Cronkite moment. Both wound up being penny ante efforts.
What’s nice about our world today is that we aren’t stuck with only Michael Ware’s world of defining today and guiding tomorrow in a 30 second airing of story covered in the last 10 minutes. We now have dozens of places, like WoC, where alternate, reasonable conclusions can be offered based on serious discussion of a wide range of information. So when I see insights like Robin Burk’s (#12), to highlight just one instance of so much good stuff offered here, I’m optimistic we’re progressing, sometimes by yards and sometimes by bloody inches, towards victory and not racking up the lost causes and miserable failures the media personalities want us to believe.
1. Militarily Id say its a toss up at this point. Yes, many of the indicators on the ground are looking up, and yes, the reports of where conflict is taking place, etc are looking up. But that improvement is slow and uneven. IF we could keep 138,000 troops in Iraq for the next 4 years, thered be no doubt we could win. But there continues to be evidence the army is seriously strained, and the real possibility that retention (which has offset recruiting issues) could get worse with more rotations. Which also doesnt prove all is lost – with more brigades coming onstream, a modest withdrawl, say to 100,000, could make the deployment sustainable. But will the Iraq situation on the ground keep improving when we reduce US forces to 100,000? Maybe. I dont know. Im skeptical whether ANYBODY truely knows.
2. Related is the political issue. Will there be a grand bargain in Iraq that will incorporate a substantial body of Sunni Arabs? Given the complex and confusing nature of Iraqi internal politics, i doubt whether anyone knows for sure how that will be resolved. If there is NOT such a grand bargain, the insurgency can probably still be defeated militarily. But it will be that much harder (see 1 above) and the end state in Iraq will be that much worse.
bq. Here’s an interesting question – is he right, and are those like me, who may talk to a few Iraqis and read military bloggers and think we’re doing better than CNN and Time show us – flatly wrong?
bq. Or, is it that he’s wrong, and those – like, say Matthew Yglesias, who read mainstream analysis and think we’re doing worse than CNN and Time show us – wrong?
…and what better place to ask this question than on a pro-war blog whose members have collectively spent thousands of man-hours arguing that the war is a good thing, no matter what the immediate facts of the moment are? You’re certain to get an unbiased answer to your not-at-all loaded question!
Let’s clarify two things, here: 1) Michael Ware may be Time’s Iraq correspondant, but he is not, in and of himself, Time Magazine. And while what he says on CNN is not gonna be entirely divorced from what makes it into his articles, they’re a long way from being one and the same.
2) For all the back-patting about how you “talk to a few Iraqis” and read military blogs, Mike Ware’s actually been _over in Iraq for months_, doing nothing but talking to _lots_ of Iraqis and US troops at all levels. You may not agree with his opinion, but he’s at least as entitled to it, based on first-hand evidence, as you are. What Matt Yglesias thinks or doesn’t really has no relevance here.
And considering that, at least as far as torture and Bush’s competence in managing the war’s concerned, you’ve recently all but admitted Yglesias was right all along, it seems odd that you’d keep picking on the guy, AL…
Chris, if you’d get out of your defensive crouch, we might actually discuss what is – to me – an interesting question.
A.L.
“Mike Ware’s actually been over in Iraq for months, doing nothing but talking to lots of Iraqis and US troops at all levels. ”
If that is in fact true he is the exception to the rule. The majority of journalists in Iraq sit in the Green Zone waiting for news to show up.
bq. Chris, if you’d get out of your defensive crouch, we might actually discuss what is – to me – an interesting question.
AL, does the fact that I used sarcasm somehow prevent you from parsing and responding to my points?
Very well, then. In summary:
1. I believe you’re somewhat unlikely to get much of a debate about your question on this board, especially given how you phrased it.
2. Mike Ware and Time Magazine are overlapping but distinct entities, and should be recognized as such.
3. Mike Ware has at least as much first-hand experience and knowledge of Iraq as you do, therefore his opinion is at least as valid, based on the criteria you’re giving.
4. Matt Yglesias is irrelevant to this discussion.
bq. If that is in fact true he is the exception to the rule. The majority of journalists in Iraq sit in the Green Zone waiting for news to show up.
Mark, I believe I’m allowed to be at least as skeptical about your point here as you are about mine that Ware actually went out and talked to Iraqis. While I’m sure you can point to many right-wing blogs that echo this talking point, it would probably save time if we just compromised and admitted that, much like a good chunk of the military itself in Baghdad never ventures beyond the Green Zone, there’s a substantial number of troops and journalists who do go out into the “real world” on a regular basis.
“and what better place to ask this question than on a pro-war blog whose members have collectively spent thousands of man-hours arguing that the war is a good thing, no matter what the immediate facts of the moment are? You’re certain to get an unbiased answer to your not-at-all loaded question!”
As AL has explained on another thread, this is the collective blog at which he posts, for various reasons. Responding to him by attacking the forum he has chosen doesnt seem like much of an argument. Im not in sync with the majority here, and have taken issue with Mr Katzman on a number of occasions. But i find your point tiresome. You might also consider that some of us discuss these issues in different places, not all of which have the same POV.
“I believe you’re somewhat unlikely to get much of a debate about your question on this board, especially given how you phrased it.”
well yeah, asking if Iraq is a lost cause is rather different from asking if we’re winning, which i hope came through in my response. But if we banned strawmen from the blogosphere, it would be a much less crowded place no? The left as well as the right.
1)There’s a reason why reporters in Iraq are not doing a very good job. They are terrified of leaving the green zone. So they cover the big stories that are easy to cover, or embed with troops, but it’s difficult to get a good interesting story that way.
This much is true: it’s a bad sign when reporters are getting killed and kidnapped whenever they try to get a story. That tends to lower the priority of ‘positive stories’.
2)Even if we had beaten the VietCong, Vietnam still would have failed because the ‘democratic goverment’ was corrupt and hated by the people.
3)I still think there will be no way to predict the outcome of this war until 1)a pollitically stable system is formulate or 2)there is reduction of near 90% of insurgency attacks (or on the flip side, until civil war breaks loose)
In the meantime, highly trained Iraqi’s needed for rebuilding (doctors, specialists, etc) are leaving in droves. I take that as a bad sign.
There are two very widely held views about the war in Iraq. In one widely held view, the US is doing well despite difficulties, and is well on the way to handing the management and defense of Iraq over to the Iraqi government, after having removed an undoubted state sponsor of terrorism and a widely-believed (but apparently imaginary) threat.
In the other widely held view, the war was lost before it started, and continues to get more lost; the Iraqis are sunk in a civil war that is only barely kept from being an outright bloodbath by the presence of US troops; the Army is broken and cannot sustain even this moderate level of commitment; terrorists and states that support them are emboldened and encouraged by our obvious failure; and there is no way forward but surrender and abject humiliation.
These two views are fundamentally incompatible. However, they are not unresolvable. The degree to which each is right or wrong will be judged by history, and the question will be how could the holders of one of the views (the one that turns out not to mirror reality) have been so delusional? I see no reason, contra the media, to declare defeat and cringe our way home. Others see no way to avoid it. One of us is wrong.
“For all the back-patting about how you “talk to a few Iraqis” and read military blogs, Mike Ware’s actually been over in Iraq for months, doing nothing but talking to lots of Iraqis and US troops at all levels. You may not agree with his opinion, but he’s at least as entitled to it, based on first-hand evidence, as you are.” – emphasis mine
This is exactly the problem I have. This is not an issue which people should have mere opinions on, least of all if they are supposed to be objective journalists.
Whether we are winning or losing in Iraq is an objective thing. It should be based on some concrete evaluation. Maybe the facts are difficult to parse out, but that is a different thing. What I would like to know is by what measurement do you claim we are losing (or winning for that matter)? Does Michael Ware have anything but a ‘gut feeling’ that we’ve lost? By what act of insight does Michael Ware know we have already lost?
You say that Michael Ware is in Iraq and therefore entitled to his opinion. Well, so what? So is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and he’s entitled to his opinion too, but why would I trust it? Just because you have an opinion, even an informed opinion, does not mean it is an opinion worth respecting. Is Michael Ware someone who by his actions and expertise we know to be a person of balanced judgement and deep insight? Or is he in fact a partisan journalist who had his mind made up before the war even started and who knows virtually nothing about the practice of war? It makes a difference.
Consider the following article:
http://www.taemag.org/issues/articleID.18977/article_detail.asp
You can accuse such an article of painting a false rosy picture, if you feel like doing so. But if you want to have something other than an opinion, you are going to have to rely on something other than feelings. The writer of the article is well aware of the dangers of going with ones feelings, and so he repeatedly grounds his beliefs in factual information. Granted, the information is not all good, but its certainly not all bad either – and none of it is so bad as to make it appear to me that it isn’t thus far a victory. Maybe a more marginal victory than we would like or hope for, but nonetheless a victory.
So what is it? What is your assessment based on?
“I believe you’re somewhat unlikely to get much of a debate about your question on this board, especially given how you phrased it.”
You belie yourself. What are you, chopped liver?
Chris –
Very well, then. In summary:
1. I believe you’re somewhat unlikely to get much of a debate about your question on this board, especially given how you phrased it.
Well, unless you include yourself as “not much of a debate”…seriously, I tend to work issues out in public in part by arguing them out with myself in public. How effectie that is remains to be seen…
2. Mike Ware and Time Magazine are overlapping but distinct entities, and should be recognized as such.
Time Magazine as an institution is composed of the people who make it up; the building doesn’t publish stories. The views of the people who make up the institution – particularly those in key positions – are nothing but relevant.
3. Mike Ware has at least as much first-hand experience and knowledge of Iraq as you do, therefore his opinion is at least as valid, based on the criteria you’re giving.
Yes he does, and in fact I was – legitimately, not ironically – asking about the disconnect between what he’s saying and what I believe. When that happens, no matter how much I wish it weren’t true, one of the possibilities is that I’m wrong.
4. Matt Yglesias is irrelevant to this discussion.
Just using him as a cautionary example.
A.L.
bq. Well, unless you include yourself as “not much of a debate”…seriously, I tend to work issues out in public in part by arguing them out with myself in public. How effectie that is remains to be seen…
I comment on, what, 10, 20 percent of your posts? And my comments are usually outweighed by roughly 10 or 20-to-1 in favor of guys saying “yes, the MSM is full of fools!”? So yeah, I stick with my “not much of a debate”.
And here I’m asking you in the most polite, least sarcastic manner possible: _why_ do you think “arguing things out with yourself in public” at this site is an effective cogitation technique? You’re essentially approaching a problem with a certain amount of internal bias (as we all do), and you go on to make arguments here that are then predominantly responded to by people who have _even more_ of the same bias. In all humility, what makes you think you’ll ever walk out of that situation _not_ believing the same things you did when you went in? How is this _not_ the textbook definition of “echo chamber”, at least when it comes to you and Iraq war issues?
bq. Time Magazine as an institution is composed of the people who make it up; the building doesn’t publish stories. The views of the people who make up the institution – particularly those in key positions – are nothing but relevant.
Here I repeat from my original comment:
Michael Ware may be Time’s Iraq correspondant, but he is not, in and of himself, Time Magazine. And while what he says on CNN is not gonna be entirely divorced from what makes it into his articles, they’re a long way from being one and the same.
Certainly it’s incorrect to say that “Time magazine says…” based on a televised interview with Mike Ware.
bq. Yes he does, and in fact I was – legitimately, not ironically – asking about the disconnect between what he’s saying and what I believe. When that happens, no matter how much I wish it weren’t true, one of the possibilities is that I’m wrong.
Then I suggest you revisit the wording of your question, wherein you spent a fair amount of time focusing on how much you personally know about Iraq, and spent no time at all on Mike Ware’s actual qualifications, instead using an MSM-watching straw man as a point of comparison.
“why do you think “arguing things out with yourself in public” at this site is an effective cogitation technique?”
…well, first because it’s worked for me in the past; second because of the array of alternatives realistically available to me, it seems like the best one.
I have a fair amount of offline discussion with folks like Marc Cooper and Kevin Drum; I’ve made efforts to create cross-blog dialogs with them, and they’ve fizzled, because that’s not something blogs really do all that well…our attention span is too short.
Yeah, I’m sensitive to the “YEAH!” effect of a like-minded audience, which is why I feel like I have worked hard to keep productive commenters who disagree – you and Andrew Lazarus come to mind – involved in the discussion.
And I’m wide open to finding ways to have more productive discussions on these issues. And when Peter Bienert calls, I’ll certainly answer the phone…
A.L.
Chris #30: That entire post boils down to a carefully phrased ad hominem attack. Frankly, I’d be less insulted if you sprinkled derogatory comments into the middle of a well constructed argument, than to read a politely worded but utterly dismissive argument.
The only reason I won’t respond as if I’ve been insulted is that I’m pretty sure it was not you intention to be offensive. (If you’d meant to, you’d probably have said, “I don’t mean to be insulting, [but I’m going to do it anyway].”)
Ok, lets suppose that we really are effectively in an echo chamber, and that we’ve never in fact heard any contridictory opinions. I’m not at all sure that this would hold up to scrutiny, but for the moment let’s grant it. The only way your argument then holds up is if we are the sort of purely unreflective emotion driven people who base thier entire philosophy and beliefs on whatever the majority of people around them believe. You must believe that we are wholly incapable of logic, and completely unable to weigh the merit of any factual information we’ve been presented with. Do you believe that we are all so unintellectual that we simply jump on whatever bandwagon is to be found at hand? In short, you are either arguing that the reason that we can’t expect a good debate here is either that we here are all too stupid to hear, or else that you yourself are too stupid to write. So what is it, are we ‘chopped liver’ or should I retract my earlier statement and apologize for accusing you of misreprenting yourself?
What makes you think that we are all so closed minded that you couldn’t say something, make some original argument we haven’t heard, bring up some important factual information we don’t have, or otherwise make an argument that couldn’t change our opinions? Do you have so little faith in yourself, or in us? What makes you think that we are so unaware of our biases that we never question them? Isn’t that what AL’s post is all about?
Or reverse this argument. Here you are talking with 20 or 30 people who don’t hold your position. Yet, despite the fact that you yourself are the discordant voice in this ‘echo chamber’, you don’t seem compelled to adopt beliefs identical to the group? What makes you think that we are any different? What makes you think that we would believe differently than we do if we weren’t in an ‘echo chamber’, or even that we aren’t elsewhere in the minority in this (or any other) opinion?
Above all, why is the main thrust of your argument an attack on your opponents rather than an attack on your opponents argument? Why must you attack AL question, rather than answering it in a substantial manner? If you believe there is some substantial information out there that Ware has, and AL doesn’t, which you could direct AL too, by all means present it.
As best as I can tell, the only information that Michael Ware has that AL doesn’t, is the first hand knowledge that Michael Ware has having embedded himself with the insurgents on several occassions and by his conduct before and after earned sufficient trust in those organizations to be invited to join and meet with other ones. Much like Robert Fisk earned Osama Bin Ladin’s respect as ‘fair and balanced reporting’, Michael Ware seems to be what the former Fedayeen considers ‘fair and balanced’ reporting. But, because we must assume that Ware is as a reporter reporting his observations, presumedly Ware has told AL what Ware knows when he made his report.
Ware’s position has always been that the insurgents were winning. He describes them in terms of being ‘sophisticated’, ‘ruthless’, and ‘inexhautible’. He’s clearly very impressed, though he got less impressed in 2004 when the organizations got more jihadist in temperment and it became unsafe for him to continue getting inside access. He has had an inside view, but whether that constitutes bias or knowledge or both is a different matter. Is Ware in an echo chamber? If Ware is wholly right, AL would like to know why you think so. So would I.
Stockholm Syndrome. Fisk is a good comparison. I think he is still denying there are Americans at the Baghdad airport.
“Stockholm Syndrome. Fisk is a good comparison. I think he is still denying there are Americans at the Baghdad airport.”
Don’t make me regret the comparison. Ware is a much more couragous, reasonable, and intelligent man than Fisk.
Ware’s main problem as far as I can see is that he’s both a jaded cynic, and an emotionally passionate person, and the insurgents picked up on that and fed him what he expected to see – an undefeatable and inexhaustable foe. And they got what they wanted, an overwrought peice proclaiming insurgent victory. Ware’s problem isn’t so much Stockholm Syndrome as mere battle weariness, maybe even life weariness. He has his good points, and he’s a hell of a better reporter than most of the limp wristed chattering classes, but you have to strain what he tells you through a filter. Watch especially for the self-contridictions where he rationally knows one thing to be true but doesn’t make the connections because he emotionally rejects the logical result of doing so.
Celebrim-
I’m gonna continue to keep my debate with AL as my primary focus, but I do think you deserve at least this much of a response:
bq. Chris #30: That entire post boils down to a carefully phrased ad hominem attack. Frankly, I’d be less insulted if you sprinkled derogatory comments into the middle of a well constructed argument, than to read a politely worded but utterly dismissive argument.
I think your first misconception here is that dismissing someone’s argument, however utterly, is the same as an ad hominem attack. That’s simply not the case – I do think AL’s question was fundamentally flawed in several respects, but that’s not the same thing as attacking him personally.
bq. Ok, lets suppose that we really are effectively in an echo chamber, and that we’ve never in fact heard any contridictory opinions. I’m not at all sure that this would hold up to scrutiny, but for the moment let’s grant it. The only way your argument then holds up is if we are the sort of purely unreflective emotion driven people who base thier entire philosophy and beliefs on whatever the majority of people around them believe. You must believe that we are wholly incapable of logic, and completely unable to weigh the merit of any factual information we’ve been presented with. Do you believe that we are all so unintellectual that we simply jump on whatever bandwagon is to be found at hand? In short, you are either arguing that the reason that we can’t expect a good debate here is either that we here are all too stupid to hear, or else that you yourself are too stupid to write. So what is it, are we ‘chopped liver’ or should I retract my earlier statement and apologize for accusing you of misreprenting yourself?
You’re extending what you think my position is entirely too far. I should probably take a few moments to take note of some things:
People in general believe what they believe for a wide variety of reasons, but for the purposes of our discussion here we can probably say that most people believe what they believe in part because of rational, unbiased reasoning, and in part because of various irrational factors: innate prejudice for/against certain ideas, groupthink, pride, mental inertia, unreasonable bias in valuing certain information sources over others, etc. This mix of rational and irrational is true of everyone, myself included – the only question is, generally, how rational vs. irrational a person’s thought processes are.
So it is not the case that my argument to AL is prefaced entirely on the idea that nobody here can possibly understand a given bit of logic… but nor is it entirely separate from the idea that AL’s question is inherently biased in some irrational manner that he’ll be somewhat reluctant to admit to.
This isn’t because he’s an unintelligent guy, or a bad human being, or any of the things that might constitute an ad hominem attack – he’s human, and he’s prone to adopting certain systemic biases in how he arrives at conclusions. I know that’s true of myself, and I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone it wasn’t true of. These biases tend to be magnified if you hang out largely with people who tend to think the same way, to a point where you A) don’t even realize you have a bias, B) instinctively dismiss most things that disagree with that bias, and C) even when trying to honestly parse arguments that go against your bias, unintentionally misinterpret those arguments so as to make them more easily dismissable.
And, again, I freely admit there’s a non-trivial probability that not only do I have such biases, but that I’m outright wrong about most things related to the War on Terror, and I’m rejecting things that are totally reasonable and correct because of pure stubbornness. My own approach is to consciously force myself to constantly confront people with substantively different approaches than myself, to a point where I can articulate their best arguments, *as they themselves would make them*, rather than in a watered-down, easily dismissed version. If my own counter-arguments can still stand up at that point, that at least increases the chances that I’m not being entirely delusional, even if it’s not absolute proof.
I can also (as I’m doing here) make arguments as to why I think the fundamental thought processes (let alone core arguments) of my debate opponents are flawed, and listen to why they think I’m incorrect. The fact that the response, 9 times out of 10, has simply been to dismiss me as an apologist for the Democratic whipping-boy of the month rather than substantively address my charges of bias (as, to be fair, AL takes a fair shot at in comment #31 above) does tend to confirm my opinions, more often than not.
bq. Above all, why is the main thrust of your argument an attack on your opponents rather than an attack on your opponents argument? Why must you attack AL question, rather than answering it in a substantial manner? If you believe there is some substantial information out there that Ware has, and AL doesn’t, which you could direct AL too, by all means present it.
Again, I’m not attacking AL, I’m attacking how he’s approaching the question. Put it this way: can we at least agree that, without saying AL’s question fits this template, asking a loaded question to a sympathetic group will almost always end up reconfirming someone’s existing beliefs? And that, if we are in such a situation, arguing against the loaded question is at the very least an uphill battle?
If we can at least agree on that, then we can have the admittedly more complex debate on whether AL’s question actually meets that description.
“I think your first misconception here is that dismissing someone’s argument, however utterly, is the same as an ad hominem attack. That’s simply not the case…”
And I didn’t say it was. Some people seem to think that the reason an ad hominem like of argument is bad is merely that it is rude. In my opinion, rudeness is the least of the problem with it. The real problem with it is that it is a distraction from the argument. Rather than addressing the point of debate, the person who employs an ad hominem attack turns from the question at hand to the question of the character of the questioner. The problem with an ad homimen attack is not that it is dismissive of the person, but that it is dismissive of the person instead of being dismissive of the argument.
“…I do think AL’s question was fundamentally flawed in several respects, but that’s not the same thing as attacking him personally.”
Oh, but in this case it is. Because rather than address AL’s question, you’ve made some really long replies which in its sum – polite sounding formal qualifiers aside – is that not only is AL (and everyone else here) too irrational and biased to phrase the question, and further that the people here are similarly too biased to give him a good answer. You’ve made polite sounding noises about how everyone – including yourself – is biased and subject to emotion, but I think we can both agree that that is always a given. So, I can only conclude that by making your now long winded diversion from the topic at hand, that you think it is particularly and especially true of the other participants in this debate. Otherwise, if you had any respect for your audience, you wouldn’t bother to digress into givens and generalities but jump right to the meat of the matter.
So no, I don’t think you are accusing him of being a ‘bad human being’ or ‘unintelligent’ or anything obvious like that. But I do think that whether you’ve made such naked slurs is rather unimportant. You’ve captured the essense of an ad hominem attack – distracting from the question at hand and deflecting the argument to a question of the person – and you’ve done so in a way that largely elevates you have the usual charge of churlishness. Meanwhile you’ve spoken with the civilly expected humility about how everyone is biased, while patting yourself on the back for your superior approach to questions while decrying what you call the fundamentally flawed thought processes of your opponents. Bravo, well played and all, but its still patronizing and disrespectful bullcrap.
Frankly, there is no particular reason why AL should bother to address a charge of bias unless you can show that he systematically ignoring certain facts. That’s the only thing that is relevant to the debate. Why AL is doing it is important only as a curiousity. AL probably knows the internal workings of his mind better than you do, you think? Neither he nor anyone else needs to defend his ‘fundamental thought processes’. The change of bias itself is not a fact of the debate, because as you yourself admit we’ve all got them. Beginning the debate by trying to dismiss everyone else’s opinions on charges of bias – however magnanimously you phrase it – is an ad hominem attack. That you phrase it magnamimously actually makes it worse IMO, in the same manner that a good lie is more dangerous than a bad one.
So of course no one is ‘substantially addressing your charges of bias’. It’s a load of crock that they should even have to. If you believe there is bias, its not your task to show there is, but rather to show that the bias is causing the person to ignore factual information that runs counter to his bias.
So present your factual information, or else shut up and get over yourself and your pop psychology. This is hardly an echo chamber, and if you think it is you don’t know one. If everyone is as you and I both agree biased, then this is as good a place as any – and better than most – to have a conversation. Start with the assumption that you don’t need you to tell us that we have biases. Start with the assumption that we don’t need your mental counseling in order to form right-headed thoughts. Treat some people with respect and maybe you’ll have more substantive debates.
Celebrim-
bq. Oh, but in this case it is. Because rather than address AL’s question, you’ve made some really long replies which in its sum – polite sounding formal qualifiers aside – is that not only is AL (and everyone else here) too irrational and biased to phrase the question, and further that the people here are similarly too biased to give him a good answer. You’ve made polite sounding noises about how everyone – including yourself – is biased and subject to emotion, but I think we can both agree that that is always a given. So, I can only conclude that by making your now long winded diversion from the topic at hand, that you think it is particularly and especially true of the other participants in this debate. Otherwise, if you had any respect for your audience, you wouldn’t bother to digress into givens and generalities but jump right to the meat of the matter.
Shrug. Look, you accused me of treating everyone here as being too irrational to understand a coherent argument. I took a great deal of time to explain where I was coming from – that bias is not an absolute but a matter of degree, and that I thought bias was a worthy issue to examine in and of itself. In return you’ve pretty much chosen to blow off everything I said, accuse me of treating everyone here as incorrigibly biased, and at the same time argued that bias isn’t worth considering at all.
That being the case, I don’t know that there’s that much more to say – I took my best shot, and if that’s not good enough for you, then I wholeheartedly encourage you to ignore my comments, or rail against them as much as you please. Either way I don’t see much prospect for further productive dialoge.
Adios.
bq. I have a fair amount of offline discussion with folks like Marc Cooper and Kevin Drum; I’ve made efforts to create cross-blog dialogs with them, and they’ve fizzled, because that’s not something blogs really do all that well…our attention span is too short.
bq. Yeah, I’m sensitive to the “YEAH!” effect of a like-minded audience, which is why I feel like I have worked hard to keep productive commenters who disagree – you and Andrew Lazarus come to mind – involved in the discussion.
I gotta admit this is a pretty reasonable answer. It’s probably still worth pointing out, however, that you don’t need “cross-blog dialogs” as an ongoing thing to sharpen the weak points of your arguments – regualar headbutting with other blogs on random issues would probably suffice. (And reaching out to lefty blogs would probably increase the overall amount of productive headbutting… but that’s neither here nor there.)
It’s also worth pointing out that relying on people who are entirely against type coming on WoC and arguing with you is probably not a particularly reliable sanity check – just arguing things out in the LAT comments would probably work better. But, as always, that’s your call.