Go over and read Victor Davis Hanson on Iraq at NRO. he details the growing consensus among the punditry that the war is lost, and then goes on:
There are many reasons why such pessimism, and indeed depression, is unwarranted — although I concede that very few Americans and still fewer pundits would agree with my own explanations.
He points out things which I fully agree with – we are closer to our European former-allies; closer to emerging world power India; closer to Japan. Elections worldwide (with the notable exception of Spain) have moved governments closer to – not further from – the US.
Our military is better, more capable – albeit more strained – than it was three years ago.
Our enemy has placed his cards on the table, and people around the world are looking at reality, and beginning to make decisions based on that reality – decisions that will be in our interest in the intermediate and long run.
Kaplan, in the Atlantic article I blogged below, says:
The patrol wasn’t over. After dark, we went house to house in another neighborhood from which mortars had been fired at a new Iraqi police station. In the fifth house, someone finally cooperated and supplied information about the make of the car, the men inside it, and where they had set up the mortar. The next step would be to deploy snipers there for several days running, hoping to eliminate the culprits when they returned. If that happened, the people in the other four houses might start cooperating. “I hate to say it,” said Turner, “but sometimes the best confidence-building measure is to kill certain people.” Another thing you could do was to pay people significantly for tips that turned out to be accurate. None of this was new, or noble. But these young soldiers were learning by trial and error that such tactics worked, assuming you had a lot of patience. It was like the old clichés about watching the grass grow, or the paint dry. “The media says there’s no strategy to win this war,” Turner observed. “There is; we’re doing it. But it’s slow, and it doesn’t make headlines like Abu Ghraib.“
[emphasis added]
One thing that I see is that opponents to the war often seem to vacillate between images in which our opponents are inexhaustible, overwhelming in number, and implacable – and those in which our heavy-booted power unjustly tramples the weak and powerless.
We are powerful; but our enemies have power as well. We have to defeat their power, and we can do it – in an instant of unthinkable brutality, or slowly, over time with patience and judicious application of force.
Hansen concludes:
So here we are — close to victory abroad, closer to concession at home.
And I agree. I am befuddled by those who – like Andrew Sullivan – once supported the war and now try and distance themselves from the reality of it.
Has the war been conducted with perfect – or even acceptable – competence? Hardly. But what war has? For that matter, what effort of any consequence has been – what is the project that our critics would measure the war against?
So what’s my response, what’s my role? To play some small part in pushing back against consensus, and to push for things that I think matter – like aid to rebuild Iraq, and an Army with enough troops to maintain the effort in Iraq and credibly deal with the rest of the threats we face.
The problem is in changing the cluture. Forcing democracy by force of arms down the throats of Moslem peoples is a dicey proposition, and one that has been met with hostility. Can we change iraq into a functioning liberal democracy? No, of course not, that propisition has failed. Is not Saddam Hussein captured and no longer a threat? Yes, we have done that, so why are there still US troops in Iraq?
John — “Forcing democracy by force of arms down the throats of Moslem peoples is a dicey proposition, and one that has been met with hostility.”
This is factually incorrect.
In Afghanistan we replaced the brutal Taliban, which was formed out of the Pushtun tribes and supported by Pakistani Military/Intelligence and Pushtun tribal leaders there, with a more broad based pan-tribal leadership.
It is not modern European, Japanese, or American democracy but far more consensual and less violent than what went on before.
The objection to “Democracy” is not ideological or national but Tribal. The “nation” of Afghanistan does not exist, merely warring/competing tribes. The Pushtuns were the whip hand, now they are one of many, and are fighting with the Taliban and Al Qaeda to regain the whip hand. The overlay of Islam is important, but it’s not substantially different than Liberia with competing tribal warlords fighting over the carcass of a nominal but entirely fictional state.
In Iraq Saddam ruled with the help of the Tikriti Sunnis, now we replaced that small sect’s rule with a coalition of Kurdish, Sunni Arab, and Shia Arab parties with the Shia as the majority.
Again the issue is not “democracy” which offers a compelling alternative (you don’t lose to an industrial shredder, merely graft/prestige/influence; you don’t win by total control, you sit in the middle with neither total control nor defeat). The issue is tribal; with again an overlay of Sunni Islamic ideology but the real conflict being a tribal one.
Tribal societies are by definition primitive and unstable, where they are able to acquire dangerous weapons through great power patronage (Pakistan and China) or oil money (Iraq, Saudi, Iran) or allow themselves to be used as a base for exporting terror (Afghanistan) they can be extremely dangerous. Even the carcass of a state provides useful cover for terrorists intent on killing thousands of Americans as we found out on 9/11.
By stabilizing tribal societies into something less dangerous the neo-cons argue that we give them something to lose and make them more conservative, far less likely to aid folks like bin Laden attacking us. At the same time they argue having the US as the patron instead of bin Laden breaks the Afghani dynamic of unstable regimes needing pan-Islamic terrorist groups for support.
The other argument is “rubble doesn’t cause trouble” ala the Jacksonians. Punitive measures to reduce the societies into something akin to Japan in August 1945 or worse. Which means killing something on the order of 20-30% of the population and total destruction of infrastructure. And leaving it at that.
You can argue which is the wiser course, but I see no evidence to suggest that America is trying to transform Muslim countries into America or “forcing Democracy down their throats.” On the contrary merely changing an endless tribal conflict into a more consensual federal model of power sharing.
Seeing how this is Victor Davis Hanson, one of the foremost experts on a decades-long war that saw both sides forcing, alternately, oligarchy and democracy on unwilling city-states, I seriously doubt anything he writes will be countered by a person who asks, “why are there still US troops in Iraq?”
For a concrete example of what AL calls the opposition vacillating between polar opposites look no further than friendly, neighborhood Fallujah. For months the usual suspects(BBC, Guardian, Independent, NYTimes, WaPo, CBS, etc.) were warning us about the dangers of entering Fallujah both to allied troops and the fragile Iraqi government. Then they spent months blaming the fact that the allies couldn’t enter Fallujah on the heavyhandedness used. Then after it was all over with they spent months moaning about why oh why! didn’t the allies go in sooner?! Follow that up with a horrendously unfactual documentary accepted as gospel by the Kosflunkies and other opposition voices and the circle is complete. Keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle and enjoy your ride through the reality-based community.
Just to expand on Jim’s democracy point. Here’s a good interview with a liberal(yes, Chris, AL is not alone by a longshot):
Question for AL :
I see that you read Victor Davis Hanson regularly, and seem to take positions that most who call themselves ‘liberals’ will not.
How do you see the Democratic Party doing in the next 10 years? How do you feel Hillary Clinton as President would affect our War or Terror? How do you get along with others who call themselves ‘liberals’ but would react to your writings with sputtering outrage?
Thanks for the articles. America needs more people like you in the Democratic Party.
GK – What do I want, what do I expect, or what do I fear? Each is a little different.
What I want is for the Kossacks to face reality sooner rather than later, and realize that the moveon.org/Kos/Berkeley- Manhattan- Brentwood iron triangle isn’t going to win any elections, and that the party needs to find ways to listen to and genuinely be of service to people with a broader set of beliefs.
That doesn’t preclude progressivism, or concern for the poor or the environment; it just suggests that it has to be dealt with in a context closer to that of Kansas City then B-M-B.
I expect them to lose a bunch of elections until they come to that realization – I’m hoping that 06 is the one where it sinks in, I’m hoping ike heck that it doesn’t take until 08 or afterward.
I fear – simultaneously – that they’ll win some major elections before then – and prove unable to govern any more effectively than, say, Carter, or that they’ll not learn and in 2012 I’ll still be fighting the same fight.
A.L.
VDH and I went to UCSC together (a few years apart, but overlapped a bit I think) and I’d imagine we shared some professors; he’s someone I’ve followed for quite some time.
Sorry, it is all over, and according to Joe Stiglitz, YOU owe us $1.5tr. What do you need? A big rubber hammer between the eyes?
I feel sorry for Bill Buckley. Working his whole life to build a movement from scratch, only to see it hijacked by a crackpot cabal from the University of Chicago, smoking weed from Tel Aviv.
Is the phrase “throwing good money after bad” unfamiliar to you?
AL :
But the current Democrats, despite become more entrenched into ther B-M-B psychology rather than less, may actually gain ground in ’06.
Plus, they have come close to winning. That John Kerry got 48% of the vote is proof enough. Not that John Kerry was that bad, but given who the first lady AND VP would have been, had he won, it shows that the ‘anybody-but-Bush’ crowd can get very close to winning.
I think the B-M-B/Kos/MoveOn may actually win, plunge the nation into several awful years (like Carter’s time), and only then will they be purged and the Democrat party return to what it was in the 1932-63 period..
I agree that the Democratic Party could take on issues like introducing quality and meritocracy into education, more funding into biotech research to increase longevity, pursuing alternative energy, attracting well-educated white-collar immigrants, etc., and find a compelling and strong message to run on.
Has the war been conducted with perfect – or even acceptable – competence? Hardly. But what war has? For that matter, what effort of any consequence has been – what is the project that our critics would measure the war against?
Wow. If no effort of any consequence has been conducted with acceptable competence, I’m glad i’m not your housekeeper.
Really, isn’t that among the silliest things anyone has said yet about the war?
(By the way — you’re banning ALL blogspot domains?)
A hearty “Amen!” to Victor Davis Hanssen’s post and yours, Armed Liberal.
I should add that while the inadequacies of the Left are part of your regular fodder, Armed Liberal, Victor Davis Hansen’s post was aimed at the Right, which may yet become a regular target of mine.
Some the respect that the Right has on security was only lately earned. It can be quickly lost by doing the same foolish things the Left did: repeating familiar rhetoric without thought, predicting military disasters without any sense of responsibility, and ignoring any responsibility to face up to what you said (for example about the calamities to be expected from invading Afghanistan) and what might have been wrong with the reasons why you said it.
If you were all for launching the war in Iraq but are not for it now, I think you need a reason why you should not be seen as frivolous on matters of war.
Some people have such a reason. If all you wanted was Saddam smashed and our troops to come home quickly without regard for what came after, your position is consistent and deserves respect to at least that extent. There may be other consistent reasons for wanting us to fight then but not now.
But many other people have no good excuse for wavering now.
When people act all betrayed and surprised about things they supposedly understood clearly a few years ago, they look phoney, and they deserve to look phoney.
We knew at the start that Saddam Hussein was an ally of terror. That was part of our reason for getting rid of him. (For Dan Darling – Dan? – I think it was the main reason: you think we are at war with Al Qaeda, so those moving to be its friends became our enemies and thus legitimate targets.)
A lot of us are more and more dubious about Islam, or in many cases we’ve made our decision. Not much good for us is to be expected from this religion or the culture and eventually the politics it fosters. Everything is going to be harder and much nastier than it would be with equal numbers of people, similarly situated, who were not Muslim.
In war, the enemy gets a say. That’s why he’s the enemy: he doesn’t do what you want.
We knew all this. Conservatives a few years ago were presenting themselves as though they had all this stuff properly internalised. What was that – just show biz?
I don’t think conservatives should give a free pass to people to talk up defeatism and to ignore the stakes in the jihad war in favour of routine political sniping as long as it’s from the right.
I also don’t think conservatives should position themselves to pass the buck if this war is lost. That’s defeatism too, it’s shuffling for the exits, and I think people should be called on it. Prominent conservatives can raise the genuine issue of one-sided press coverage in Iraq, as Donald Rumsfeld recently did in a press conference, without any indication that they are quitting on the war; and I think that should be expected, even demanded of them. I don’t want to hear any more of William Kristol or anyone else talking about how the war was never really fought all out. Because that’s more than half way to saying: you know if this war had been fought my way we would have won, so don’t blame me. And it’s phoney.
I don’t think that standards should be any lower for the Right than Armed Liberal wants them to be for the Left.
If, as I expect, Bush persists, and our very good army does the job, a lot of people on the Right are going to have potentially embarrassing statements on their records. I think they should be ready to face up to them. (In which case, they can be credible again. Everybody makes mistakes.) If they aren’t, they should be reminded, and not just or mainly by the Left.
At some point you need a standard, not just a side.
AL’s housekeeping != effort of any consequence
Or does it…………
I’ve always preferred the Periclean model. Judging potential leaders according to the 4 criteria* for a stateman and then taking your share of the sh!t sandwich when that person’s policies blow up in your face. The leader takes his bite for poor policy. We take our’s for poor judgement. It’s only worked for 2,500 years but who are we to rely on it.
1) love for one’s country
2) wanting what’s best for one’s country
3) ability to communicate (2) to the populace
4) incorruptability
In case anyone was wondering. Plz don’t ask for a cite. It’s Thucydides…read the whole thing.
It’d be interesting to see a blog collaboration to see how all the different sides would judge politicians according to the 4 above. Intersting to for all the exploding heads. The comments would probably be very predictable.
Charlie (#9),
War isn’t like housekeeping. Unless you live in a home with 12 kids (or, since you’re in Colorado, 12 teenage snowboarders!). Try it and see what your place looks like 🙂
A.L. and VDH are right that friction makes the simplest things hard in war, and major mistakes are to be expected. Assuming equal perseverance, the side that makes fewer really important mistakes, has more depth to cover for them, and/or recovers better from mistakes that are made that usually wins.
As for blogspot, sorry we had to. In less than 2 weeks since we did it, over 1,500 blogspot trackback spams have been blocked, and I check the logs. The VAST majority were spam. Blogspot needs to get its security together against automated spam-blog creation – now THERE’S a poorly-conducted campaign for ya.
American are not dumb. Eventually, when enough facts are available the American people will decide for themselves the right course of action.
American are now overwhelmingly aware that the war on Iraq was begun on lies and is continued by an inept administration unable to admit it error.
Howard Dean was right. We are not safer now. We are more in debt, we are more hated, we are more untrusted than any time in American history.
Yet we still see administration apologists twisting the facts spinning crazily trying to justify the unjustifyable.
Boys and girls, when a policy is immoral, and is recognized as immoral, it is dumb to continue your support for it.
Ken’s indictment of the Bush Administration is pretty much the anti-war anti-Bush manifesto. An otherwise party-line Conservative friend (he once said that the Wall Street Journal editorial line was pretty much his political creed) has crossed over to the anti-war side and questioned why I haven’t joined him, and what he said is pretty much what Ken has said, although Ken didn’t include the part about the neo-con conspiracy.
The interesting thing is that my friend doesn’t know who he will vote for in 2008 — it would gag him to vote for Hillary or any of the other Democrats while Ken sounds like he could vote for any reasonable Democrat.
Ken, are you reading this? I am telling you that while your anti-war message is not highly regarded here on Winds of Change, it resonates with a lot of people, including my right-wing friend, but to get his vote, your Democrat pals will have to be a lot more flexible on other issues to broaden their coalition. Bill Clinton was expert at this kind of triangulation but Hillary and the rest of the current party leadership don’t seem to have the skill to pull this off.
A point that keeps coming up among everyone against the war is that America is “more hated” as a result of waging that war. Far as I can tell, it doesn’t seem that America is hated in India right now. India is just one country out of many, but it is a pretty big country with a burgeoning economy and a lot of people at the forefront of science. Many people in India seem to have had a bellyfull with Islamist violence, and they don’t seem to be protesting the war in Iraq. Europe hasn’t had as much friction for as long with this kind of thing, and many people there are openly critical of America. There are more Indians than (Western) Europeans.
Is saying that America is “more hated” a true fact? If the goodwill for America factor is nuanced, do you suppose similar nuance applies to the WMD question? Deception is an important tool in war; do you suppose that Saddam engaged in deception to make people believe he had WMD in order to fool people into submitting to his rule, and that George Bush was stupid enough to fall for it — and that Saddam was stupid enough to end his own rule through a deception that was meant to keep him in power?
Just as deception can be a tool of war, the ultimate end of war is to frame a state of mind in your adversary. Wars are seldom carried out to complete exhaustion or annihilation.
As to frame of mind, the conventional wisdom is that the American Army has such an edge in training, tactics, and firepower that no one else in the World can stand up to it. This same Army, seems to give as well as it gets (it probably has a considerable edge there too, but this is lost in the fog of war reporting) in insurgent conflict.
As to the other side of the equation, the bombing of the Marine barracks got us ejected from Lebanon, and the loss of 18 American soldiers in one skirmish in Somalia get us out of there too — I was among the “frame-of-minders” whose voices got us out of Somalia over that one incident.
And then there was 9-11. It was supposed get us out of Saudi, which it did, but it got us into Afghanistan and rightfully or wrongfully into Iraq. That we left Lebanon and Somalia with many fewer casualties provided encouragement to Bin Laden, but he didn’t take into account that we would get so huffy about an attack on our own soil. If he had pressed on with continued attacks like those on foreign embassies and the Cole, he would have done a better job demoralizing us by a death of a thousand cuts while still sitting pretty with his Taliban pals.
To the bumper sticker “Support our troops, bring them home” I would like to add “put our bond brokers and city firefighters back on the front lines.” It has long been American tradition to fight our adversaries “over there” than “over here”, but this kind of forward strategy of taking the fight to the enemy rather than letting the enemy come to us looks like it is easier to lose. It leads to Ken’s litany, which I am beginning to hear from conservatives, which doesn’t bode well for victory in Iraq.
The real problem is that for America, the Iraq insurgent war is not perceived as existential. The reason I say perceived is some things are never proven — most wars are never fought to the point where that you lost has been proven by having all of your men killed, women carried into bondage, and having salt sowed into your ground. There were no WMDs, we are sacrificing our youth on a pointless war, let’s call the whole thing off. In the minds of my conservative friend and many others who are sick of the war in Iraq, there is the unspoken thought that “they are all a bunch of sheet-wearing ingrates who will never adopt democracy so let’s go home.”
My Yugoslav Momma who saw first hand how the German army got chewed up in Yugolavia during WW-II was always horrified at the thought of the U.S. being bogged down in insurgent conflict in a Middle Eastern country. But 9-11 showed that we are in insurgent conflict on our own shores, so that question becomes moot. I tell myself that Iraq is terribly existential to America — if bugging out of Somalia over the loss of 18 soldiers brought on 9-11, think of what anything other than victory in Iraq will bring? But maybe we need to bring the soldiers back from Iraq and let the fight come to our shores again to strengthen the resolve of the American people.
My Conservative friend, who was insufferable about never wanting to conceded a “debating point” when he was talking up right-wing causes and is equally unyielding right now, would be quick to add “Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11.” Maybe Iraq didn’t and maybe it didn’t, but wars are more about states of mind anyway, and withdrawing from Somalia let to 9-11 because Mr. Bin Laden flat out told us it did.
Ken, if you are still listening to my message, you are going a lot farther in hearing me say my peace on this subject than my conservative friend who always has to be right about every subject. We are all sick of the Iraq war. I am to be persuaded to give up on Mr. Bush and to give up on the Iraq war, but someone has to take the trouble to go off script from the standard anti-war talking points to address these concerns.
Armed Liberal,
You raise two important points:
1. Victor Davis Hanson is right that major wars are usually not clean and quick. But he asks years of sacrifice in combat to fight a war under the most unnatural of constraints. Wars are won or lost by national will and I don’t think it is possible to sustain national will by insisting that a limited war fought with no time limit is the only way to fight. It should be the other way around: in war, your means should be unlimited and your goal should be to end the conflict as quickly as possible.
2. Regarding the Democratic party, can a presidential candidate who relates to red state voters culturally but lacks national security experience do better than a candidate who is closer to the red states on national security but inspires social issue concerns? That seems to be the choice right now. But how long will social issues hurt Democrats, and how will it take for voters to question Republicans on national security? What impact will changing demographics have on both parties?
I hope the American people fair better with Iraq than it has on other epochal topics. Because from that one poll alone I wouldn’t feel too bad saying that 70%+/-3 of us are atleast approaching dumb.
Paul,
It is the American position to never enter into an illegal, immoral and unjust war. That happens to be the position of leftists as well. If conservatives have a differing view, well, shame on them.
Your irrational fear of dark skinned people whose beliefs are different from your is pathetic. But you shouldn’t worry. We will protect you. We will protect you without attacking innocent people and causing even more anti-American sentiment around the world.
Paul, I am not picking on you but I hear your argument all the time from conservatives who are still trying to justify something that is unjustifiable.
The only thing that’s pathetic here, Ken, is you and your deficient quality of argument. We’ll be happy to pay attention when you grow up and come prepared to offer substantive argument rather than talking points, unsubstantiated charges, and ad hominem.
Until then, why feed the troll?
I would say our real problem is that America is facing a war on two fronts. No, not Afghanistan and Iraq, but “The Middle East”, and Washington DC. ShrubCo can howl all they want about those horrible terrorists who want to come over here and eat our children and rape our dogs. If they really wanted to win the war(s), they wouldn’t have shorted the troops on equipment, or for that matter soldiers. The actions of our misbegotten “leaders” show that “winning the war” is the last thing on their minds. Their real priority is taking control of America, and destroying anything that challenges their power. (Warning: shifting to first person for sarcastic effect.)
Education? Save it for the rich people, all those middle class college grads are just too uppity. Health Care? Ditto. Civil Rights? Nah, just throw all those “minorities” into the army. Women’s rights? Hey, forced pregnancy increases church membership. Global Warming? Neato, maybe all those coastal liberals will drown and quit yapping. International relations? Them pantywaist furriners better do what we say, or else! Economic problems? Hey, “we” don’t have any problems, just bought a new Hummer with our bonus for slashing labor costs. If Americans want jobs, they can work for $10/day just like those guys in India and China. Science? Can’t trust those eggheads, they just don’t follow orders. Free speech? Hey, everybody has the right to King George’s opinion. Freedom of religion? Ditto. Honest elections? In the bag! With those new digital voting machines, you can’t *tell* if they’ve been hacked, so there’s nothing to challenge! (And they’re mandatory!) Government integrity? We give our lobbyists exactly what they paid for! Disaster response? Oh, that’s just God’s version of “urban renewal”.
(Back to my own “voice”…) Maybe you’ve heard the saying “never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity.” Well, ShrubCo’s offenses are so widespread and dramatic, that I’ve coined a response to that one: “Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistingushable from malice.” Bluntly: There is no way in hell that Iraq will be truly “won”, nor terrorism suppressed, under a neocon Administration. That’s just not in *their* interests, because if they let their Forever War end, they’d lose their Handy Dandy All-In-One Abuse Excuse. and might actually have to *do* something about our domestic problems. They’d much rather leave that mess to someone else. Say, to whatever fool takes the hot seat, *after* there’s nothing left for the neocons to “privatize”. And of course, they can then heckle said fool (from their refuges abroad) for being “ineffectual”….
David,
Does posting misrepresentations, myths and outright falsehoods really make you feel more in control of your life? For your comment is among the more irrational and contra-reality imaginable.
The reality is that our troops have not been “shorted” on equipment. Our military have been the most lavishly equipped troops in the world and still are. The stories about HMMV armor upgrades and body armor have been fake controversies created for political attacks.
The Bush administration has, with the Medicare prescription program, created the largest expansion of government support of healthcare, but you don’t let that discourage you from including a claim of the Bush administration attacking healthcare.
Regarding “irrational fear of dark skinned people whose beliefs are different” from mine – I’m equally afraid of pale-skinned, blue eyed Aussie boys like David Hicks (Australian Taliban) and “Jihad” Jack Thomas. What those guys have in mind is a belief system that has got to be fought, because if it isn’t fought, it will still fight us, it will not leave us in peace.
I thought Iraq was a rational place to go fight it. I still do.
The consequences of not fighting soon in Iraq (while it was still politically possible to attack) were likely to be large and ugly, while other problems small enough to be taken on practically (this means: not North Korea for now) were also slow-moving enough to be left for later.
Also, whatever else we were going to do in the Middle East, getting rid of the loose cannon Saddam Hussein was always going to be essential to consolidate our gains, so the most flexible option was to get rid of him immediately. That was my main argument for the war. I folded the weapons of mass destruction issue – which I certainly thought was real and urgent – into the “loose cannon” part of an overall strategic perspective that we needed to make some brisk progress in reducing the potential threats to us that we had to fight shy of, and regain as much freedom of action as we could. And when the White House called the weapons of mass destruction issue the one big cause for the war, I fully went along with that, without needing to relinquish my overall perspective.
Finally, in Iraq, if anywhere, we might have found the less Islamic, mostly secular population that might make a successful reconstruction of the country possible. If the malice of Islam could be softened anywhere, this was the place, and directly after removing an immensely unpopular dictator was the time.
At the time, these things seemed to mean I should be classified as a “neoconservative”, which was fine by me.
I won’t unsay what I said. Only the label is in doubt.
If Francis Fukuyama is a definitive neoconservative, I am no more a neoconservative than Victor Davis Hansen.
In a piece in the Wall Street Journal I agree with without reservation, Bret Stephens (among other points) calls Francis Fukuyama on his amnesia about his unreserved support for the war he now talks as if he always saw through, and for his membership of a group of people he now talks down to. (link)
Good. It’s about time.
The risk of the mess that we have in Iraq and the slow, frustrating progress we have in Iraq is part of what we signed on for when we cheered on the invasion. People should not pretend that isn’t so.
Anyone who wants to play the unfailing oracle now, forgetting what he said when the issue of invading Iraq was really a “live” one and hoping that others will forget too is acting in a way that makes it reasonable for others to take him less seriously. When Francis Fukuyama talks down in an unfriendly way to people who said the same things he did once, and who unlike him are not strategically amnesiac, he makes himself less than them.
Yeah, pull the other finger, Ken. The leftists who parrot the revisionist Chomsky*. The leftists who decry America as a xenophobic, racist, expansionist, imperialist, genocidal, etc. country. A country that enslaved a continent. Exterminated millions of indigenous peoples. Nuked a country not once but twice all for political showmanship. Trained 60,000 assassins for death squads. This damnable scourge of mankind. Invented AIDS. Unleashed crack on its own citizens. Turned Iraq into a radioactive wasteland AFTER having wink-winked Saddam into invading Kuwait. Funded the Nazi war machine. Faked moon landings. And you’re just shocked, SHOCKED!!!! that we started a supposedly illegal war? Shocked so hard that the mantra is turned inside out into “we’re better than this!!”
* – pay particular attention to the last line:
As the editor of Defense Industry Daily, I cover global military purchases, trends, and issues every day.
The US military procurement system needs improvement, and there is a real tension between the interests and lobbying of the military-industrial complex and the needs of the front-line troops.
Just to throw everyone a curveball here, I’ll note that it’s structurally the exact same tension as exists between the interests and lobbying of the social work/ poverty industry and the needs of poor people in our societies.
Having said that, people in other militaries tend to more or less gape in awe when they find themselves in-theater with US forces, and confronted with the depth of the USA’s shiny new kit for all kinds of contingencies – AND its ability to field new things. Whatever US troops are, under-equipped isn’t one of them.
For instance… in Iraq, the Poles (who would really like more of the USA’s Interceptor body armor) are driving around in doorless Jeeps and using Israeli IED jammers; the British often use unarmored Land Rovers. Since beginning the war, the USA has up-armored all of its (mine-trap, still) Hummers, deployed M1117 Guardian armored vehicles, added a whole slew of IED-focused robots, and shipped in a new vehicle called the Buffalo that can survive just about any IED and uses a saw-toothed extensible hoe to remove them. And of course, several of those vehicles have gadgets like Blue Force Tracker, so they always know where friendly forces and identified enemy forces are.
If you’re sitting in an unarmored Land Rover or even a Warrior IFV/light tank, and suddenly all this stuff goes by (as it sometimes does) because some UAV just reported a change in the road from scans made yesterday… it’s impressive. Stuff like this is part of the reason why the success rate of IED attacks is so low. And they’re the #1 killer in the war, which tells you how extremely low odds other options are if you want to take on US troops.
Overall, the US military procurement system creaks along but still kind of works – lots of room to improve, but still better than most other nations I can think of outside of Israel, Singapore, the UAE, and possibly France and Sweden.
Britain? Look at the lack of agility their system has demonstrated since Afghanistan. Australia? They try, some successes, but lots of mistakes and questionable calls too. Japan? You’d think so, but no. India? Complete and utter disaster – but then, its defense industry is state-owned so what would you expect. Europe? Take a close look some time – inflexible, huge overhead, low bang for buck. Canada? Don’t get me started. China? Getting better, but not in the same league. Russia? Be serious.
I can think of a few ways I’d absolutely equip US troops differently, but it’s not as if the Democrats have brought anything useful to that debate in the last decade or more.
Maybe you might like to start some day, instead of just spewing invective. I mean really, the spoiled child tone is impossible to miss. I read this stuff and I wonder sometimes if the people writing it have ever actually run or managed anything in their lives.
While I’d agree that Fukuyama seems to be changing his tune here, so is Hanson in this article.
So now the reasons for our war in Iraq were “dubious”? Geez Victor! It might have been helpful if you’d have mentioned this at the time!
Hanson’s and Fukuyama’s credibility is in shreds now so it’s not at all suprising to see them both change their tunes.
It’s a bit sad though to see otherwise intelligent people still bothering to read them.
But then it’s hard to let go.
Actually, the odd thing about Fukayama is that he’s not really changing his tune. Still head-in-the-clouds, ivory-tower, the world will magically work itself out and all will be well. Most neoconservatives thought he was something of an fool for his “End of History” stuff (I was, shall we say, more than slightly surprised to hear him identifying himself as one, and wonder how honest that is) – and he isn’t exactly disturbing those preconceptions.
He does much better work when he narrows his focus to topics like trust in societies, and avoids the grand pronouncements.
As for the second, might be worthwhile to ask Hanson directly if he’s quoting the opposition’s argument or has changed his tune. He certainly still seems like a strong supporter based on his writings, which have never broken from idea that it was a good idea. This inclines me to believe it’s #1 – accept the opposition’s premises, then argue on their terms.
Damm AL did you cross post this thing over at KOS?
I just scanned down and the comments are shoulder deep in troll sh*t. Not even the average Winds trolls/light who at least make a reasonable attempt to debate.
Debating with stupid people who think catch lines like “Education? Save it for the rich people” actually qualify as counter point in a debate is a waste of time and only serves to degrade your own points.
You just cant debate against such truisms as Bushiter, Evil rich blah blah republicans hate all people and are racist Christian pigs lead by a Cabal of Joooos. WTF
The funny part is in the west we often complain about how the ME is rife with rumor conspiracy theory and question how WHy? We should be asking the same about todays LLL’s. Their Self-hatred, rumor, profiling of entire groups as certian types of beliefs and people mixed with thier conspiracy about all who disagree with them and all this country is based on.
“Your irrational fear of dark skinned people whose beliefs are different from your is pathetic. But you shouldn’t worry. We will protect you. We will protect you without attacking innocent people and causing even more anti-American sentiment around the world.”
Ken, this is truly remarkable. I tell you that you can have the vote of a conservative friend of mine and that you could even have my vote, that I am sitting on the fence. Then you as much as call me a racist — for sitting on the fence.
This is a simply amazingly inept means of persuasion. It speaks to why the anti-war position is not getting any political traction — when people who do not get on board quickly enough or for the right reasons are regarded as “irrational”, racist, and “pathetic.”
Having gotten my big rant out of my system, I’m now going to stick to the responses:
Robin Roberts:
bq. The reality is that our troops have not been “shorted” on equipment. Our military have been the most lavishly equipped troops in the world and still are. The stories about HMMV armor upgrades and body armor have been fake controversies created for political attacks.
There’s a few dead soldiers who would argue with that — not to mention the military careerists who Rumsfield blew off in the first place. But of course, anything that contradicts the ShrubCo Approved Story is automatically labeled a “fake controversy”. Oh, but at least Shrub didn’t engage in (gasp) _oral_ _sex_!
bq. The Bush administration has, with the Medicare prescription program, created the largest expansion of government support of healthcare, but you don’t let that discourage you from including a claim of the Bush administration attacking healthcare.
Sorry, on this one *I’m* seeing “ground truth”. From everything I’ve seen, Medicare Part D is carefully designed to resist comprehension and rational decisions by the “beneficiaries”, while a punitive deadline is designed to force people into it regardless.
Joe Katzman: I won’t argue your expertise, but I will say this: Yes, there is a natural tension between the lobbyists and the ground troops. I’ll even grant that there’s a similar tension in social services, though they have a lot fewer full-time lobbyists — social services simply doesn’t have the cashflow that defense manufacturing does. But in both cases, ShrubCo has *consistently* gone with the industry lobbyists, at the expense of the ground troops. The most dramatic example for the military is how Congress funded several expensive high-tech weapons that the Pentagon *didn’t* want, pulling resources away from the stuff they *did* want.
bq. Stuff like this is part of the reason why the success rate of IED attacks is so low. And they’re the #1 killer in the war, which tells you how extremely low odds other options are if you want to take on US troops.
Newsflash, dude — we’re not attacking another high-tech army. We’re attacking forces whose primary strengths are “home ground”, fading into the civilian populace, and total indifference to their own casualty figures. At least in Vietnam our allies and opponents had distinct home territories.
You comment “Since beginning the war, the USA has up-armored all of its (mine-trap, still) Hummers…”. My point is, if all that stuff was available, why wasn’t it there from the beginning? And if it wasn’t available, why didn’t we hold our water until it was? You talk about how many other countries don’t have nearly our resources or financing. Which is surely true, but they didn’t start this war. We did, and dragged most of them along for the ride. (I note that China, at least, is purely irrelevant. Not only are they not in this fight, but their military’s classic strength is “human wave” attacks, not fancy tech.
In Afghanistan, there was an obvious justification for attacking “right now”. But Saddam Hussein, flatly, was not an immediate threat. Obviously, Shrub *wanted* to take him out — fine, I do agree with the “loose cannon” evaluation. But there was no *military* reason to rush that attack, and every reason *not* to draw resources out of Afghanistan. (Whither Osama, again?) So just why did ShrubCo take the trouble to falsify such reasons, and pursue them far past the point where the revealed dishonesty embarrassed America in front of the world?
bq. Maybe you might like to start some day, instead of just spewing invective. I mean really, the spoiled child tone is impossible to miss. I read this stuff and I wonder sometimes if the people writing it have ever actually run or managed anything in their lives.
Riiight, you accuse me of “invective”, and in the next sentence call me a “spoiled child”. And you were sounding so reasonable…. Indeed, I’ve never run a major (or minor) company. By the same token, I’ve never run a company *straight* *into* *the* *ground*, as Shrub has done for _every_ firm he’s ever run.
C-Low: Funny how you dismiss me as “stupid” and “not worth debating”, then send forth an army of straw men….
“At least in Vietnam our allies and opponents had distinct home territories. ”
I should have stopped reading at the first ‘Shrub’ reference. Silly me. Suffices to say anyone who believes the above shouldnt be talking about military matters.
“Overall, the US military procurement system creaks along but still kind of works – lots of room to improve, but still better than most other nations I can think of outside of Israel, Singapore, the UAE, and possibly France and Sweden. ”
Good points Joe. I’d describe the US procurement system as analagous to Democracy, the worst system except for all the others. The real confusing part is that critics attack basicaly _every_ system, making it difficult to seperate the wheat from the chaff. For every Osprey debacle there is a rousing success like the Stryker. But you will probably still hear more complaints about the Stryker. The bottom line is despite all the graft, ineptitude, and politicking, our troops generally get the best equipment in the world in a timely fashion. Not always instantly, but if perfection is the requirement we might as well pack it in.
Harmon,
Your rants have gained nothing in either relevance or reality. Your hyperbole is indeed silly.
The discussion of body armor and HMMV armor was over quite a long time ago. All weapon systems are compromises, people who use those compromises for political attacks are not serious people. Redesigning our military forces for evolving missions and the resulting procurement takes time and your attempt to cast that as some malevolent conspiracy of “BushCo” is adolescent at best. In fact, the conflict between Rumsfeld and some of the military bureacracy comes from Rumsfeld’s attempts at pushing that transformation – the exact opposite of your insinuations.
The kind of troops needed in Afghanistan and the forces needed in Iraq did not have a lot of overlap, and supporting troops in Afghanistan is difficult due to its lack of infrastructure and convenient borders, so the claim of removing resources is at best a gross exaggeration.
This kind of behavior is why so many of us believe that Democrats are not serious about military affairs, the conduct of the war or foreign affairs in general.