Last week, my intellectual betters, Peter Bienert and Bjorn Staerk both posted apologies for their early support of the Iraq war.
So, let me open by suggesting that in spite of my desire to find a way out of this, I’m really unimpressed by both Bienert’s and Staerk’s posts.
In Bienert’s case, it’s a national apology; the United States simply isn’t good enough, darn it, to be allowed to go around the world and hurt people and change things.
It begins with a painful realization about the United States: We can’t be the country those Iraqis wanted us to be. We lack the wisdom and the virtue to remake the world through preventive war. That’s why a liberal international order, like a liberal domestic one, restrains the use of force–because it assumes that no nation is governed by angels, including our own. And it’s why liberals must be anti-utopian, because the United States cannot be a benign power and a messianic one at the same time. That’s not to say the United States can never intervene to stop aggression or genocide. It’s not even to say that we can’t, in favorable circumstances and with enormous effort, help build democracy once we’re there. But it does mean that, when our fellow democracies largely oppose a war–as they did in Vietnam and Iraq–because they think we’re deluding ourselves about either our capacities or our motives, they’re probably right. Being a liberal, as opposed to a neoconservative, means recognizing that the United States has no monopoly on insight or righteousness. Some Iraqis might have been desperate enough to trust the United States with unconstrained power. But we shouldn’t have trusted ourselves.
In Staerk’s case, it’s more personal.
This mirror of “What Went Wrong” wouldn’t be a story on the same scale, but it has the main theme in common. It would be about Westerners who had their reality bubble pricked by people from an alien culture, and spent the next couple of years stumbling about like idiots, unable to deal rationally with this new reality that had forced itself on them. Egging each other on, they predicted, interpreted, and labeled – and legislated and invaded. They saw clearly, through beautiful ideas. And they were wrong.
Who were these people? They were us. “Us”? This seemed a lot clearer at the time. Us were the people who acknowledged the threat of Islamist terrorism, who had the common sense to see through the multicultural fog of words, and the moral courage to want to change the world by force. It included politicians like George W. Bush and Tony Blair, it included the new European right, it included brave and honest pundits, straight-talking intellectuals in the enlightenment tradition.
There is a nexus of failure in each case; Bienert explains that he was intoxicated by hope;
I was willing to gamble, too–partly, I suppose, because, in the era of the all-volunteer military, I wasn’t gambling with my own life. And partly because I didn’t think I was gambling many of my countrymen’s. I had come of age in that surreal period between Panama and Afghanistan, when the United States won wars easily and those wars benefited the people on whose soil they were fought. It’s a truism that American intellectuals have long been seduced by revolution. In the 1930s, some grew intoxicated with the revolutionary potential of the Soviet Union. In the 1960s, some felt the same way about Cuba. In the 1990s, I grew intoxicated with the revolutionary potential of the United States.
Staerk is ashamed of his amateurishness
Among the bloggers there was a sense that there were all these brilliant people, who knew so much about history, war and society, who had previously been without the tools to express themselves. Thanks to the wonders of amateur media, we could now finally exploit this huge reservoir of expert knowledge. And when you contrasted the lazy neutrality of the old media with the energy of the new, it certainly could seem that way. Here were people who regularly would write thousands of words about the historical context of Islamist terrorism, who could write brilliantly about freedom and democracy, who commented boldly on the long trends of history. How could such people be wrong?
But what we saw was not expert knowledge, but the well-written, arrogantly presented ideas of half-educated amateurs. This, too, went all the way from the bottom to the top. It often struck us how well the writing of the best of the bloggers measured up to that of pro-war pundits and intellectuals. We thought this showed how professional the amateurs were, when what it really told us was how amateurish the professionals were.
Each of these apologies makes me think hard about my own positions. I’m not the smartest or best-informed person on the planet, and I make it a habit to look for people smarter and better-informed than I am to try and learn from. But one thing adulthood has brought to me is the observation that smart and well-informed people are often amazingly blind to obvious facts. The list of geopolitical analysts who predicted the peaceful implosion of the Soviet Union was damn short, and if you had polled the Conventional Wisdom for the twenty years up to the fall of the Wall, I don’t think it would have mapped well to reality. When Nixon flew to China, how many people thought a Chinese technology company would be buying IBM’s personal computer business?
Accepting that your ideas about the world can be – and often are – wrong is critical to being any kind of a useful or serious thinker.
So where does that leave me in my own position on Iraq?
There’s an easy out that I can take…in 2003, I wrote:
So if the Democrats want a response to the war, here it is:
#. We won’t take Iraqi oil as booty;
#. We will work to wean ourselves from Middle Eastern oil through efficiency and domestic sources (but this time, unlike the Alaska pipeline, we won’t lie to Congress and the people and go sell the oil to Japan)
#. We’re in this for the duration.If we can’t answer all three as a solid “yes”, we shouldn’t go. We should just close out eyes, hunker down and hope for the best.
If we can, we should. We’re in a fight, and wishing it away won’t make it disappear.
We aren’t meeting any of the 3 criteria, so I could throw my hands in the air and say “well, we didn’t do it like I said, so it was wrong and we shouldn’t have done it” and go stand with the cool kids.
But that would be a bullshit answer.
Sadly, as hard as I look, so are Bienert’s and Staerk’s. Neither of them looks at the situation in the world and argues how it would have been better had we refrained in Iraq.
Look, the jihadi movement feeds on a base stock of alienated, unhappy young men who are discovering the attractive power of Bad Philosophy (as opposed to Bad Religion, which is one of my favorite bands…). They are attracted when they see it as a noble struggle – so yes, the war is attracting them to the movement.
But they are also attracted to winning; and a steady stream of jihadi victories against Western interests – answered with arrests of the perps and pinprick attacks – is as powerful a recruiting tool as a call to battle. In fact, I’ll suggest that it was historically a more powerful one.
Yes, the United States isn’t morally pure enough to remake the world through preventative war. But we are morally pure enough – wise and virtuous enough to go kick jihadi ass, and maybe, just maybe create the space for a decent society to grow up in a few places around the world.
Hilzoy also had a powerful article last week that ties to this –
It seemed to me that at the heart of this disagreement was this one fact: that the women from India were from a country that had already achieved independence, and were living with the problems that came afterwards, whereas the women from South Africa were trying to achieve that self-government in the first place. The South Africans seemed to think that the women from India had forgotten what it was like to be subjugated. We need to win our freedom as quickly as possible, they seemed to say. We realize that it would be preferable to win that freedom in the best possible way. If we could win it just as quickly through non-violent means, we would surely do so. But you would not ask us to wait if you really understood what it is like to live in slavery.
By contrast, many of the arguments made by the Indians turned on the effects that achieving self-government through violence had on one’s own people. Don’t do this, they seemed to be saying: once you win your freedom, you will find that you and your people have grown accustomed to settling disputes by force and to demonizing your opponents. Think now about how to use the struggle you are waging to teach yourselves how to become citizens and to practice self-government. Do not wait until you win your independence to discover that self-government requires not just political power, but political responsibility.
I think that’s an incredibly important point. I’ve talked endlessly in the past about the notion that a Palestinian Gandhi would have not only attained independence for the Palestinians but would have built a viable and admirable society. And about the notion that a violent kleptocracy cannot easily transform itself into a democracy just because they vote (something I neglected when I watched the Iraqi elections…).
But here’s the rub – Gandhi himself felt that German Jews should have protested nonviolently even it meant they were all slaughtered.
Nonviolent action builds the bonds trust that make a civil society. But how do you practice nonviolent action in the face of those who lack any compunction about killing? There is the $64,000 question.
The only answer I can see is that a space for it must be somehow created by violence.
To paraphrase Team America, sometimes you need dicks in the world.
Which brings us neatly back to Iraq.
We’ve opened the seam of instability in the Middle East, that’s for sure. And I could see why that’s an issue. Except…we’ve had a ‘quasi-stability’ for the last 30 years there. And what, exactly, has it bought us?
Thirty years of peace, to be sure. And a bigger and more violent jihadi movement.
We could have just invaded Afghanistan – but what then? Do you think it would be better with 100,000 more US troops? Do you think that Iran (and Iraq) wouldn’t be funding an insurgency there in the hopes that we’d walk down the same path as the Soviets?
Would the world really be better? If someone can make a good argument about that, I would have to shift. Until then I am stuck here, calling it as best I see it, and looking to see more clearly.
The biggest point against these noobs is that stability brought us 9/11. More stability-type stuff will bring us bigger tragedies then 9/11. However, then the liberals will at not feel guilty that the US military was killing people and breaking things.
It really doesn’t make any difference how you admit it, it is the admitting it that is important.
I cannot think of a greater foreign policy blunder than the invasion of Iraq. The Neo-con view of the world comes straight out of Wilson and is even more naive considering nearly a century passed between the time of Wilson’s 14 points to guide a New World Order and Bush’s senseless and mindless invasion of Iraq.
The argument that we invaded Iraq to make the ME safe for democracy would be laughable except for the fact of its criminally cruel cynicism. No one could believe that whopper. How could anyone not want this whole foreign policy crew removed for being criminally naive.
One other point. The Bush Grand Strategy looks like the work of a high school age Risk player. The ME hasn’t seen this bad a player since Julian the Apostate.
Thanks for picking up on this – most comments I’ve gotten have been from people who already agree with what I wrote, who aren’t the people I most wanted to reach.
You’re arguing here on a detached, abstract level. You’re suggesting strategic what-if scenarios and large scale social theories. This is an interesting level to discuss this on. Here’s another: The US essentially blew up an entire state structure, and failed to replace it, leaving chaos, hatred and an unending stream of deaths and refugees. That’s a massive amount of suffering, real and non-hypothetical pain. So what I’m saying is that you’d better be real sure that your ideas are correct before you risk the stability of an entire region on them. Because the stakes are so massive.
Would things have been better without the war? On the abstract plane of grand strategies and global relations? I think so, but the damage on that plane can be repaired. It’s the plane of real life human beings going about their lives that concerns me. And on that plane the invasion has been a disaster. And even that angle is somewhat misguided, because it assumes that if by luck things had turned out better then there would have been no problem. But you can’t justify an action entirely by its result. If you run across a busy street on red light, it might go just fine – but that doesn’t mean it was a smart thing to do. In the same way, the problem with the Iraq war was the casual way these arrogant amateurs decided to just invade another country. Amateurs in blogs, amateurs on the op-ed pages, and amateurs in government positions.
Manco: More stability-type stuff will bring us bigger tragedies then 9/11. However, then the liberals will at not feel guilty that the US military was killing people and breaking things.
Iraq has been a bigger tragedy than 9/11. 3 000 dead vs 50-x00 000. Stability sounds boring, but don’t reject it without taking a long hard look at the alternative. True instability is something we in the West are unfamiliar with, I suggest looking into post-colonial African history.
The statement that there has been thirty years of peace in the Middle East is wrong. There has been war between Israel and the Arabs in 1956, 1967 and 1973. War between Israel and Lebanon in 1982 to 2000. , between Hamas and Israel in southern Lebanon in 2006. Between Iraq an Iran in 1982 to 1989. War between Iraq and Kuwait and the US in 1990. There were many internal revolts that do not count as wars but should count against Peace in the Middle East. The Kurds against Turkey, the Kurds against Iraq, the Lebanon civil war, The September uprising in Jordan in September 1971. The destruction of the city of Hama in Syria. The destruction of the Marsh Arabs. I remember the Egypt invaded Yemen in the sixties too. This does not count the revolution in Iran in 1979 or the Russian invasion in Afghanistan it 1980 or the Taliban internal oppression or the continuing war in the Durfar region in Sudan. Algeria has had a very vicious civil war going on for some, driving refugees into France. I must admit that Morocco seems peaceful, maybe because the violence is at such a low level it never get into the news. There is no peace in the Middle East.
The US essentially blew up an entire state structure, and failed to replace it,
That is at best partially true, and at worst untrue. To begin with, there is a state structure in Iraq, although it is certainly far weaker than it needs to be. One can hope that it will get stronger (unless the Democrats get their way and abondon the project).
Further, just how quickly should the US replace the state to satisfy you? It’s taking longer than many expected, and longer than any would like. But clearly even in the most optimistic scenarios, nobody expected the instant creation of a new state.
You apparently allowed about 4 years before giving up and declaring the project a failure. How did you pick that number, out of curiosity? Is there some priciple behind it or did you just decide you were sick of watching the news?
Bush decided the sanctions were a failure after 12 years–are you of the opinion that they were not a failure after all that time, but the invasion is after 1/3 the time?
A blunder is a blunder. There is no way to get around it and when a blunder is recognized it should be admitted, sans the rationalizations about Jihadi that AR hides behind.
What the U.S. should be thinking about today is how they were led to commit such a colossal blunder. They might start by asking what are American interests (list them) what are the extent of American interests? Why we were completely outplayed by everyone in the ME? How we can rationalize the absolute destruction of an entire society to no apparent end?
As far as the 9/11 red herring is concerned. Iraq was not responsible for 9/11. Saddam Hussein had done a pretty good job of keeping Jihadis out of Iraq. and Our policy has only made thewort elements in the ME more powerful.
Before anyone starts kicking about how much better the iraqis are without Saddam, imagine having to worry about you, your wife or your children being perpetually in danger of being blown to bits just for doing daily chores like buying some tomatoes.
I should know better than to wade in here, but:
imagine having to worry about you, your wife or your children being perpetually in danger of being blown to bits just for doing daily chores like buying some tomatoes.
I do not deny that things are very, very, bad in some parts of Iraq. But imagine having to worry about being gunned down just for doing daily chores, like in some of the gang-infested neighborhoods of the US. Yet no one belives that this has caused the “absolute destruction of [our] entire society.”
Something like 60-70% of the population doesn’t even live in the Baghdad/Anbar area where the bombings are going on. I don’t know, but I strongly suspect that even within Baghdad, there are safer areas and more dangerous areas, like Brentwood v. South-Central, Georgetown v. Anacostia, or Madrona v. Ranier Valley (10 points to whomever can ID that last city). And if you watch the nightly news, you probably think the US itself is nothing but a bunch of kidnappings (featureing cute little white girls) and grisly murders, enlivened by the occasional huricane and school bus crash.
So: are things bad? Yes. Should we be cheerful and delighted with the results of the invasion? No. But your arrogant overconfidence in your beliefs is, if not precisely what Bjorn is criticizing, at least the mirror image of it.
_The US essentially blew up an entire state structure_
The UN Sanctions were breaking the state. It was a matter of time before the state broke or the sanctions became inoperative. We were probably moving towards the worst of both worlds and getting both.
I wonder if Iraq had failed due to sanctions whether Beinert’s liberal world order would support U.S. military intervention to stop the genocide.
Peter Beinart said: “…when our fellow democracies largely oppose a war… they’re probably right.”
Right? Why?
One: Bush and America freed 50+million people from two of the most murderous governments in existence.
Two: We did this at a total cost in lives (meaning ours, theirs, _and_ collateral) that makes this one of the *cheapest* wars of liberation that America (or anyone) has ever fought.
Three: Then, instead of simply appointing pro-American dictators (which would have been easy to do, and still been an improvement for all those people), we have spent millions of man-hours and billions of dollars to give them a _chance_ at decent democratic governance and decent modern social systems (education, legal, economic, etc.).
Fifty MILLION people who now have a _chance_ to join the modern world. Would they (and their descendants) have been better off under their former regimes?
Yes, lots of our “fellow” democracies oppose all this. In fact, their “chattering classes” generally hate us for it. They are not merely wrong. They are contemptibly wrong.
America is the world’s exceptional country because it will stand alone when necessary to DO the right thing – while everyone else just conveniently forgets what that is – and even when “our fellow democracies” will only wallow in self-righteous, finger-pointing hypocrisy.
If it were up to me, America would stay in Iraq for the next 50 years just to safeguard our current gains – nevermind the ones we _should_ make from here on out. And there is precedent for such a time period, as “our fellow democracies” – especially in Europe – might care to remember.
Beinart is yet another shortsighted fool in a huge bovine herd of methane-producing fools. God save civilization from such as they.
I think the invasion was a good idea and I still do 100%. Alas, I think the execution of the entire post-fall has been less than perfect.
I occurs to me that the “biggest foreign policy blunder in the history of the US” might actually be the failure to march on Baghdad in 1991. Osama was a nobody then, and while there was a world jihadi movement, it wasn’t what it later became, or at least I don’t think it was.
Anyway, just a thought.
AL —
I believe your response overlooks the following:
1. Doing nothing in response to Saddam’s deliberate provocations was dangerous. Saddam refused to dial down the anti-American conspiring before and after 9/11 (Assassination attempt on Bush, no inspectors, Clinton’s indictment of Saddam-Osama terrorist partnership, sanctuary to Abu Nidal and the one remaining 1993 WTC bomber uncaught etc). Saddam sent the message that the US could be defied with impunity.
This was a dangerous message post 9/11.
Doing nothing in response to it (as Clinton’s impotent Desert Fox bombing campaign 98-99 was) only confirms the message that the US is impotent against it’s enemies. Dangerous wrt Osama’s influence and power among Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and scientists like AQ Khan.
2. Demonstration of the US Military’s conventional forces ability to destroy (as opposed to building) a regime is useful in intimidating hostile forces who cannot be reached any other way.
3. US policy must be based on what benefits the US in the short and long-term. Basing policy on moral vanity of a preening elite is as bad as short term gains for long term losses. Withdrawing from Iraq NOW only re-inforces the message of defeat of America by Iran and Al Qaeda and …
GUARANTEES A WMD ATTACK ON US CITIES.
This last point is crucial. Unless we pre-emptively nuke Pakistan and Iran’s nuclear facilities we have no way of realistically deterring either an Al Qaeda nuclear attack with a “deniable” weapon from Pakistan (Al Qaeda controls much of Pakistan and much of it’s military) or one from Iran through Hezbollah. Or perhaps even a joint operation as in 9/11.
The greatest interest of the US is in preventing an nuclear attack on our cities. This can only be prevented by staying in Iraq and making concrete demonstrations of our willingness to inflict unacceptable pain on Pakistan and Iran.
If anything we need to bomb some facilities in Iran and Pakistan while staying in Iraq just to make those deterrence points. The casualties in Iraq while regrettable will pale in comparison with 7 million dead in NYC and perhaps 3 million dead in DC.
Look at Bjorn’s objectives: moral purity which is unattainable and thus a recipe for doing nothing but being a “morally pure victim.” Who cares if Iraq has violence? It had plenty of mass graves under Saddam (that the media never reported). It had a hostile regime collaborating with bin Laden.
Iraq has been extraordinarily successful and has less of a weekly death toll than Zimbabwe. More people die each week of starvation in Zimbabwe than Iraq. Sudan has a far worse death toll and violence and outright Genocide. Yet Liberals like Bjorn are entirely comfortable with both situations and offer certainly nothing to stop the death tolls in either country (the only way to stop it would be unilateral US military action).
“How we can rationalize the absolute destruction of an entire society to no apparent end?”
What society? Saddam’s Sunni Tikriti Apartheid state that committed genocide against the Kurds, and kept the Shia as brutally oppressed semi-slaves? Saddam kept Iraq covered in blood (mass graves with children, women, old men) ala Stalin. Is there any surprise that there’s lots of violence?
“Before anyone starts kicking about how much better the iraqis are without Saddam, imagine having to worry about you, your wife or your children being perpetually in danger of being blown to bits just for doing daily chores like buying some tomatoes.”
Or perhaps having your wife raped in front of you for not speaking in praise of Saddam loudly enough, or being gassed with all your friends and family in your village?
Again, moral preening and elevation of impotence against killers with guns as First Principle. Americans will not stand for another 9/11 much less a nuclear one. If an American city is nuked the survivors will insist on wiping out whole nations (Pakistan, Iran, Saudi, and nuking Mecca and Medina into dust). IMHO the US should do everything in it’s power to deter attacks and forestall that inevitability. Bjorn and other Libs overestimate their ability to control the US after such an attack.
If we lose cities to “a billion Muslims” and their rage, the response will not be the PC grovelling and destruction of the Middle Class and it’s moral values that Liberals like Bjorn imagine, but the killing of “the billion Muslims.” See: Tokyo firebombing, Curtis LeMay, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
With all due respects A.L, but “We’ve opened the seam of instability in the Middle East, that’s for sure.” should read: “We’re sewing up the seam of instability in the Middle East, that’s for sure. And if the entire Modern/Western world pitched in, we might have a chance to be able to sew it all up… within one to three generations or so.”
There are Palestinian Gandhis amongst them, and the vocal ones were lynched in the first five minutes of the Intifada. The point is that elements within the Muslim world want modernity too, and they need our help to bring it about. In the last generation, the South Vietnamese boat people fled for thier lives but in this generation, modern Muslims won’t have anywhere to hide because radical Islam isn’t as content to remian in their corner of the world.
What remains is the stark fact that we- all of us- have to fight for our lives regardless if those amongst us lack the courage to do so.
Another thought:
The alternative response to 9-11 from Liberals in the USA and all of Europe was that the USA should accept terror as a fact of life, a neccessary and vaguely justifiable friction that comes with the territory of world superpower stewardship. Certainly, that was our attitude prior to 9-11, do I have to list the infamy (emabassy, USS Cole, et al)?
The equation works both ways: perhaps the friction spun off counter-terror efforts (sturm und drang in the Middle East) too, is a new fact of life that we have to get used to. Certainly, those who are moderate and modern Muslims living there understand and accept this as a neccessary condition for a new Muslim world to emerge from their stubborn atavistic legacy.
Quite simply, there were never any easy answers for Iraq. Many Iraqis were going to die there under either scenario.
I believe it is fair to extrapolate Saddam’s past into a future of death and destruction, so it’s not a stretch to predict the broad brush path of that particular “what if”.
The problem I have with the anti-war approach is a failure to address the future “what ifs” of either scenario.
Iraq is at the crossroads of a strain of political and religious oriented violence and it is spreading. To leave them alone was to ignore the problem that would have evolved with
1)Saddam still in power
or
2)the collapse of Iraq under its own weight.
Quite simply, not invading would only have put off until tomorrow the same difficult choices that have been faced over the last several years.
We can use our imaginations as to where that path would have taken us but I’m fairly sure it wouldn’t have been spontaneously peaceful and democratic. At least the invasion offered up the slimest hope of pushing things in a new, perhaps, less horrifying direction.
Preventative war?
The Gulf war was to restore an independent Kuwait and punish Saddam for the invasion. Gulf 2 was just a continuation of Gulf 1 occasioned by Sadam’s failure to comply with the truce agreeement and his daily attempt to kill American pilots.
Kiinda like “Gee, your honor, I was just standing there when this cop arrested me” and conveniently neglecting to mention that he was counting the money in his victim’s wallet as he stood there.
grow a spine someday. it will do you good.
Bjorn, have you ever met my friend Hoderer?
You’re confirming my ‘clean hands’ notions about modernity – i.e. if things are bad, but we didn’t cause them, that can be OK with us.
Further discussion when I get off the road.
A.L.
AL, don’t consider yourself an intellectual inferior to Bienert and Staerk. It’s good to consider comments and opinions of others, especially those who’ve established a good track record with you. However, all the intellectual capability in the world will not prevail over wisdom and common sense, both of which are lacking in the portions of their reports you included.
BTW, the US does not need to be perfect to come to the aid of others; if perfection is ever a precondition, we would not be able to lift a finger anywhere, anytime. Nor does the US need a majority concurrence of other nations to take action we deem appropriate. What a crock to even suggest these conditions!
Most other nations (including many Western European nations) seem to be smugly concerned only about their own well being. There are very few that are willing to pay more than lip service to fellow human beings in need.
AL — it is not modernity but CLASS that makes Liberals such as Beinart and Bjorn reject “the dirty jobs.”
Warfare by it’s nature is a “dirty job.” One even Mike Rowe would not do. Upper class people (look at Karl Rove’s comment about not wanting his son to dig ditches) abhor physical labor and particularly dirty and disgusting labor.
Any military force anywhere results in the ugly dirty job of killing.
Liberals want a hamburger without killing the steer. Impossible but Libs as a class are so far removed from the realities of life that they might as well not exist on the same planet as the rest of us.
Look at their primary motivations: morality and being “pure.” This implies that all their other needs are so met in Maslow’s heirarchy of needs that they spend all their time on moral dilemmas.
The vast majority of working and Middle Class people would just as soon nuke all the ME except Israel and be done with it.
ET — Western Europe lacks any appreciable military capability whatsoever. IMHO it’s merely a matter of time before Muslims in North Africa start raiding them then settling the way the Vikings did against the militarily weak Europeans in the Dark Ages.
bq. IMHO it’s merely a matter of time before Muslims in North Africa start raiding them then settling the way the Vikings did against the militarily weak Europeans in the Dark Ages.
Jim – This has already happened. Just that those who have been conquered do not have the good sense to know it yet. The “Western” nation states of the functional Eurabia have already declared defeat. Britain has hate speech laws, as do Austria and others. Hell, the raids were over a long time ago. Europe is lost as far as I can see. I think it is only a short time before the demographics of Muslim birth rates and the heavy socialist states collapse the remaining vestiges of Western thought in Eurabia.
The Hobo
Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention, read Steyn’s “America Alone”
#3 from Bjørn Stærk: “Thanks for picking up on this – most comments I’ve gotten have been from people who already agree with what I wrote, who aren’t the people I most wanted to reach.”
“Reach” … for what? What do you want, Bjørn Stærk?
Armed Liberal: So where does that leave me in my own position on Iraq?
There’s an easy out that I can take…in 2003, I wrote:
So if the Democrats want a response to the war, here it is:
#. We won’t take Iraqi oil as booty; #. We will work to wean ourselves from Middle Eastern oil through efficiency and domestic sources (but this time, unlike the Alaska pipeline, we won’t lie to Congress and the people and go sell the oil to Japan)
#. We’re in this for the duration.
If we can’t answer all three as a solid “yes”, we shouldn’t go. We should just close out eyes, hunker down and hope for the best.
If we can, we should. We’re in a fight, and wishing it away won’t make it disappear.
We aren’t meeting any of the 3 criteria, so I could throw my hands in the air and say “well, we didn’t do it like I said, so it was wrong and we shouldn’t have done it” and go stand with the cool kids.
I have questions.
1. What are the details of how America seized Iraq’s oil as booty, as you see it? I don’t get that.
2. What are the detaills of how America sells its oil to Japan and how this is some sort of scandal, apparently? I don’t get that at all.
3. We’re supposed to be in what for the duration of what?
I don’t blame Bush for the aftermath at all. the lefties in Congress and the State department, not to mention in the military have been sabotaging any good efforts 24/7 since Bush mobilized the country to invade Iraq. Probably the best thing for Bush to have done was appeasement. That’s something the leftiest could agree on and not sabotage.
But clearly even in the most optimistic scenarios, nobody expected the instant creation of a new state.
I think Rumsfeld would beg to disagree here, if he still remembers what he had been saying in the early days of the invasion.
Zimbabwe may have a greater death toll but creating another Zimbabwe artificially is not what I’d call solving the problem.
Iraq has been an unmitigated failure, and the administration has no one but itself to blame for that. Hearing and seeing what we heard and saw as the proof of the terror links with Saddam, an invasion was the right course (Almost as much for the strategic reasons).
Leaving now would be much worse of a disaster, no matter what spin the supporters, or detractors, of the war put on it.
Clearly, US is having trouble doing the job itself. Frankly, GWB/Cheney should just get a bit humble and ask for help from other countries from the region and away, since the administration’s arrogance (and might I add its stupidity) and is what has put a lot of people off. Threatening and arm-twisting is not working, some modesty might. They owe atleast this much to the country they have led to this debacle. The world needs and wants a strong US, but not a strong and arrogant US.
Concentrating on Afghanistan and Iran is a much better oplicy option especially when they are the root of the major problems in Iraq as well.
Iraq has been an unmitigated failure
Again with this claim. AJL, our liberal friend, is fond of calling Iraq “Hell on Earth.” Does it make sense to say “Michigan is hell on Earth” because Detroit has some scary places? Even if bombs started going off in South-Central and killing large numbers of people, would anyone say “California is an unmitigated failure”?
GWB/Cheney should just get a bit humble and ask for help from other countries from the region
All those countries hate us and want us to fail.
The world needs and wants a strong US
You must be living in a different world than I am.
Does it make sense to say “Michigan is hell on Earth” because Detroit has some scary places?
IF detroit had a 10th of the death and destruction seen in baghdad everyday, you would hear about it constantly. If detroit was overrun by thugs, who had overpowered police and basically formed their own law, you’d hear about it. If Judges, Politicians and anti-gang leaders and community members were stepping up only to be assasinated, kidnapped or flee; beleive me you’d know. All in all, baghdad is not dissimalar on the long term to what Katrina was in the short term.
And the violence is greater than Baghdad. Basra, supposedly the place of British ‘victory’ is now overwheld with Shia groups duking it out for authority. The most peaceful place in the country is Kurdistan, which is entirely run by Kurdish militias (which is the only reason why it is succesful). The pollitical system necessary to fix these problems is basically dead, and groups are superficially attending while staging background militias and coups for power…
The question “Is Iraq better or worse?” is a difficult question to answer at the present moment. Sure, people are generally free to say what they want. However now many families are terrified to leave their houses, terrified to attend schools or colleges or stores because death has become spontaneous in the streets in many areas. Western groups that quietly oppossed Saddam have now fled. Bookstores that used to sell banned goods (like liquor, literature etc) have either closed or been bombed. Yes, they’re is greater hope for the future then before, but their is also more fear for what could be.
All in all, the most dangerous possibility is not a “worse than saddam” scenario, it is a middle east world war. This could have been prevented if US and international forces still controlled Saddam’s troops (as in 1991). However, he chaos swirling in Iraq is forcing Sunni Leaders (Saudi Arabia) and Shite countries (Iran and Syria) to underhandedly supply resources to the blaze.
I was against the Iraq invasion because I thought we were unprepared and had poorly anticipated the worst case scenarios. I also thought there were other countries (such as Afghanistan, coastal guinea, etc) where a mixture of forces and funds could have had a larger impact immediately.
I also would add that arguing over who was right and wrong is now irrelevent. What to do next is the best question, and I have yet to see strategy to put us back on course. And Jim, if we nuked Iran, the first thing I would do as a muslim nation is UPSCALE manufacturing of weapons, to prevent the same thing from happening to me.
This whole debate is really sort of silly. All based on hindsight or wishing some kind of mistake free post war recontruction. I supported the war, I still support the war. I do not think it is the biggest foreign policy blunder of all time, (Carter’s non handling of the hostage crisis tops it by far as it helped sowed the seeds of Islamic terror we have today). Nor was it even a mistake. Nor is it particularly badly executed. The stability in the Middle East was an illusion sustained on oppressive governments, seething populations fed by Islamic call for Jihad. That the rest of the world felt this was ok does not make it ok, In the best case solution breaking Iraq and putting it back together did not unleash the other sunni/shia tensions – obviously that did not happen. But those tensions were there before we invaded, they did not materialize over night upon the invasion – yea we hate the americans and now we hate each other as well. So unless you support oppression and strong men in perpetuity at some point this had to break. I say its better to break when we have 150 k troops in there to manage the tension as best they can and it looks like some progress is being made in baghdad, on oil revenues, 70% of the country is violence free, the economy is growing, there is free speech etc. My only real wish is that Bush was a better communicator, that he communicated more of what we are doing, where we were before, where we hope to be best case and worse case. Etc. reforming the middle east is a tough job, but its worth doing, however imperfectly
Alchemist,
I didn’t say Detroit was anywhere near as bad as Baghdad, I merely pointed out the violence in one big city does not make an entire country (state) “hell on Earth,” an “unmitigated disaster,” a failure, “total destruction of an entire society,” etc.
I am not opposed to stopping the violence in Baghdad/Anbar. I am not trying to say that everything in Iraq is just wonderful and happy. I’m just pointing out that–so far as I can tell from the sketchy reporting–it is a minority of the population suffering from the violence, and it is fairly well contained geograpically as well.
Rather like the violence in our own country, which gets non-stop coverage on the news as well. Think about it: if all you knew about the US was what you saw on the national newscast, you’d probably think it was a pretty scary place.
These facts–and I do think they are facts–do not square well with the rhetoric one sees here and on the floor of the Senate about what a terrible failure everything is. I’m not actually trying to argue that it’s a success, I’m just asking the “hell on Earth” crowd to explain their hyperbole.
[And of course, we now know that Katrina wasn’t as bad as the media portrayed it at the time. Not good, either, but not the orgy of rape and murder we were led to believe.]
Rob, I thought I indicated preety clearly the warning signs that Iraq is getting worse, not better. Even in the ‘less violent’ areas of Iraq (except Kurdistan) you are seeing a return to fundamentalist muslim law. Women are attacked for showing their face. Universities are bombed and faculty are harrassed. And non-religous mobster types are using the chaos to grab power as well. Don’t think detroit… think Russia post-coup.
No, katrina wasn’t as bad as it sounded, but there were still gangs running the street, that’s my point. Also Katrina was only roughly 7 days…. the chaos in Iraq will be years.
Kevin: I’m glad you feel that Iraq was run well. I personally like the idea of crateloads of money dissapearing without accounting. Of hiring amateurs who had no economic, pollitical or reconstruction experience being payed millions to get nothing done. I like the idea of hiring people who don’t know the language, don’t understand the country, don’t understand the religion to try and repair a nation that has been ruined by 30 years of tolitarian rule. I like the idea of hiring companies who accept projects, only to partly finish them and then leave. And I personally love the fact that despite several generals asked for more troops, Rumsfeld insisted on 200,000. It’s just lovely, isn’t it? Besides, who needs success when you have party loyalty?
Alchemist,
I’m not sure we disagree. I didn’t say it was getting better, and as there are contradictory signs, I’m not sure I could form a reasoned opinion on that question. My principal point is that there is not one authentic Iraq to discuss, but many.
Also, I don’t wish to accuse the media of losing the war for us as some people do, but rather to be a savvy media consumer: I watch the local news, and I see murder, mayhem, 3-alarm fires. This does not make the US hell on earth. So naturally I discount scenes of murder, mayhem, and 3-alarm fires in Iraq by some amount corresponding to the natural preference of journalists to cover newsworthy events.
This does not prove that Iraq is a great success, but it does, I think, call into question the rhetoric of total failure.
I am comparing failure by how many people are dying. NOT by what infrastructure, like electricity, water, sanitation, etc., has been developed to be used by the people. If a person’s life and property cannot be saved, what is the point of providing him electricity and water? Infrastructure problems will make it look worse.
Anyone who doesn’t pretends to get his news just from the Administration spokesman would not be missing out on the spiralling number of casualties in Iraq since the invasion. One link, and this is for 2006.
Even if the attacks happen in some pockets, those areas are the most congested ones in Iraq. A place like the New Orleans is being termed as a disaster-hit area, even by the conservatives, and failure of atleast the local officials. Why then are the constant massacre in Iraq not seen as a failure?
The world needs and wants a strong US
You must be living in a different world than I am.
O, How I wish!
Why then are the constant massacre in Iraq not seen as a failure?
Nobody claims that the entire United States is a “failure” or a “disaster” because of New Orleans. Baghdad may be a disaster or a failure, but that is not the same thing as Iraq being a disaster or a failure. This distinction seems to be lost on many people.
And just to be clear, what evidence do you have that the world wants a strong US?
AL,
I’m glad you got around to a response to Beinart and Staerk. I took a lot of time with a response on Beinart’s piece, link here
http://dadmanly.bl*gspot.com/2007/03/liberal-hawk-recants-part-one.html.
Haven’t gotten energy enough to take on Staerk.
Iraq was perhaps not the best of choices, but it was action in the face of grave threat. It carried the fight back to a state sponsor and proponent of terror, as well as a threat in his won right, and a brutal, oppressive criminal.
All of the arguments against, then or now, want to argue in the purified abstract: without reference to context at the time, or looking at what ifs or the logical consequences of their oppositional positions.
I like that image, of “a seam of instability in the Middle East,” but I guess I’m with those that suggest the seam predates us our any of our involvements.
No, America will never be pure or good enough to impose our will on the world, however much that might be a good thing. But we can, just as we have, try to sort out the better of bad options, deal with the garbage and inhumanity created by our enemies and not a few of our friends, and try to make things better.
We have, we do, and we probably will, if domestic self- and international other-loathing doesn’t make it impossible.
Moral responsibility does not attach to the hurricane Katrina which is an act of nature.
An interesting discussion might be had concerning when does moral responsibility move from the US, which did hasten the instability into the region, to those folks taking advantage of the situation to actual kill innocent people.
Continuously seeing analyses where the terrorists are essentially non-moral agents like hurricanes gets really, really old.
I opposed the war and its conceptual framework from the beginning. And I do not by any means have any trouble with military force where and when needed. I don’t even think it has to be a last resort, just operable. Our problems in the Mideast are in the realm of the cultural/political. Axiomatically, a cultural/political solution is required. The various and changing reasons for going into Iraq, obfuscate this issue.
The U.S. has actively intervened in the Mideast at least since 1953 when we overthrew an Iranian government with an Iranian origin, in favor of the unqualified son of the military officer who had himself overthrown a legitimate government, and out of the blue sky declared himself Shah. Since the Carter Doctrine of 1978 we have foolishly allowed ourselves to become entangled in the region directly, agent our own interests.
Again and again we fail. We fail to articulate or achieve our goals. We misunderstand critical issues. We conflate understanding of foreign views for agreement with those same views; we are left wondering vacuously why could this happen when we are the good guys.
The real problem is the mental framework of most Americans: the inability to recognize the essential humanity of people who are different. How many of you would change our social or foreign policy under duress from a more powerful country? If another nation had fleets off our coasts, armies on our borders, and bombed our cities with impunity. I’d tell them to get fkd. If my country were occupied, I’d fight any treasonous collaborationist government. Are you all men or cowards? Why would you think anyone else would differ on that?
From an oil perspective, having American troops in the Mideast is disasterous. Oil is hideously vulnerable to sabotage. Oil production needs political stability. And that has to be internally generated.
We are now saddled with the ridiculous and never ending war against a myth.
How about we start taking advice from people who know what they are talking about. Look back to 2002 periodical archives and see who was right then, and what they are saying now.
How about we start taking advice from people who know what they are talking about. Look back to 2002 periodical archives and see who was right then, and what they are saying now.
How about we go back to 2000-2001 archives and take advice from the people who were right then?
Sophistry. (sigh) Not even good sophistry.
Tom Perry:
If a cultural/ political solution is needed, why is it all helpful to start blaming America for the region’s woes? I don’t agree with your interpretation of the “overthrow of Mossadegh”:http://theglitteringeye.com/?p=1424 since I believe Mosadeqh had ceased to be a democrat before the Shah constitutionally removed him as prime minister and he decided to fight. I don’t want to argue the merits, but would at least suggest that the history is open to interpretation.
But the issue supports two contentions: (1) a sense of grievance that the U.S. is responsible for the illiberality of the region and that it must do something or it is guilty of propping up dictators by omission and (2) a sense that the U.S. has the power to create or destroy governments.
In other words, the accusation that the U.S. is responsible for the lack of democracy in Iran is essentially used to advocate a status quo policy on Iran for which the U.S. will be blamed anyway.
I apologize if my sophistry is not up to your high standards.
But I bring up the commetariat of 2001-01 because I suspect–but cannot prove–that none of the anti-Iraq-invasion commenters (many of whom are big “stability” fans) saw clearly how their love of stability was about to backfire badly.
The old order is not good enough. Invading Iraq may have been a mistake–but not doing something different in the 1990’s was clearly a mistake, too.
I don’t think it unreasonable to believe that someone who could spot the pre-2001 mistakes early is more useful for advice than someone who could spot the 2003 mistakes early.
That should be “did not see clearly”
Of course one can change his mind, but there is absolutely no point in apologizing unless you want to look like a fool twice. The antiwar crowd might just as well apologize for not making a better case against the war when it counted, which was before it started.
I remember. I had carefully looked at all the anti-war arguments prior to the invasion and most of them were not convincing then, have not come true later, and most importantly: they did not propose workable alternatives. They still don´t. Their horror scenarios never happened either. Few presented as clear and sober an analysis and argument as Jim Webb did (maybe that is why he has gone mad recently) and these serious voices were not heard above the din.
My personal experience: I live in Europe and I can assure you that antiwar Europeans were not thinking seriously about Iraq. There was a lot of “war is always wrong” muddled thinking. They believed in Saddam´s WMD, they just refused to see their responsibility to do something about them. So the WMD were not found, but they did not foresee that: that was just luck. I had lots of discussions with antiwar types and most of them ended with them saying, in effect, “I don´t care if they slaughter each other down there”. And they will stop caring when the last US soldier leaves Iraq, trust me.
I always said the any occupation would have to last 5 to 10 years, and I did not expect the
first 3 years to be wasted.I expected the Bush administration to prepare people for the long haul. I expected no loss of momentum but continued offensive against Iran and Syria coupled with active support for liberals across the Middle East (or what passes for liberl there). Turned out I was wrong there. Doesn´t mean they weren´t wrong, too. So let´s all apologize to each other FOR ALL THE GOOD IT WILL DO!
I am not a liberal. So, do not try to paint me with that brush. I am a conservative in the Goldwater strain. I am by no means a Neo-Con, who, as I see it, are at best the most naive thinkers that the U.S. has produced in its history and at worst represent a dangerous strain in American Foreign policy.
These people had an idea which they sold to the American people that amounted to not much more than America using its military strength could force morality on the ME. The hubris here defies description. It is like Wilson going over to Europe to sell the Imperial Powers his 14 points. Only Wilson’s idea was to use superior American political thought to teach morality to those Imperialist heathens.
Their vision as to what would happen after the invasion amounted to not much more that the GI’s would throw chocolate and nylons off the tanks to the grateful locals. Remember the administration’s continuing to label the incipient insurgency nothing but dead enders.
Before the War the head of the Arab League stated that the invasion of Iraq would open the Gates of Hell. They are only ajar at this point, but anyone that thinks that the dominoes of ethnic and religious conflict can be constrained at this point is hopelessly naive. We have created the classic vacuum which power abhors.
Of all the foreign entanglements that Washington would have warned us against, this one would have topped the list. To invade a country as different as Iraq is from us for the flimsiest of reasons, on the flimsiest of intelligence and with an Foreign policy that amounted to nothing than an admixture of ideology and ignorance, defies rationality.
We have perpetrated a horrible crime against the Iraqis. Excuses like:
We saved them from a horrible dictator. He was their dictator and, it seems, we have replaced him with an equally if not more horrible, inhuman and seemingly endless anarchy and Civil War.
If we didn’t invade, it would have sent the wrong message after 9/11 are the height of immorality.
Or, to sit comfortable in The U.S. and say that most people live out side Baghdad so the carnage that we have unleashed is somehow OK is simply a warping of Ethics.
Conservatives tout their belief in personal responsibility and morality. The greatest damage that the neo-Cons have done is to divorce conservatives from that core belief. The whole cant of look at the larger picture, things will be worse if we walk away, etc., drag us away from the fact that the U.S has the responsibility for the destruction of the society there and the consequences. Those on the right should take a good look at their own personal morality on this issue.
As I said the first thing that has to be admitted is that the invasion of Iraq was a blunder, an almost unspeakably naive blunder We have to turn our attention to getting out of the situation as soon as possible and construct a reasonable and sophisticated Foreign Policy to deal with the fall out from what is a National Catastrophe for the U.S.
The lessons that the U.S. should learn are>
There are limits to our power.
We should have a much clearer idea of U.S. interests.
And most importantly, it is usually better to mind your own business.
TOC said
“The lessons that the U.S. should learn are>
There are limits to our power.
We should have a much clearer idea of U.S. interests.
And most importantly, it is usually better to mind your own business.”
Yes. Absolutely. Where possible.
“Before the War the head of the Arab League stated that the invasion of Iraq would open the Gates of Hell. They are only ajar at this point, but anyone that thinks that the dominoes of ethnic and religious conflict can be constrained at this point is hopelessly naive. We have created the classic vacuum which power abhors.”
It was coming anyway. We created nothing that wasn’t already bubbling. The neocons seem to be the only ones who had the insights to realize this and jump out in front in attempt to change course. Naively? Perhaps.
I assumed that the Iraqis deserved a chance at freedom. They got it. They are blowing the only shot that they were ever to or probably will ever get. After this, the entire ME will most likely be a write off and you will have your wish. Isolation.
I’m not sure you will like the results of that any better.
TOC, you have a lot to say about morality, none of which is particularly useful except as penance. OK, I take responsiblity for advocating the invasion of Iraq. Maybe I’ll say some Hail Marys or something to wash away the sin. Now will you discuss the actual issue, which is what to do next?
Or, to sit comfortable in The U.S. and say that most people live out side Baghdad so the carnage that we have unleashed is somehow OK is simply a warping of Ethics.
I never said that. I said that destruction of a city is not the same as destruction of a society, and hyperbole ill befits the current serious situation.
anyone that thinks that the dominoes of ethnic and religious conflict can be constrained…
So…the US is immoral because, freed from Saddam, people want to kill each other instead of building a liberal society? I’m not sure that the immorality has been correctly located here.
And most importantly, it is usually better to mind your own business.
We weren’t doing that in 2003. We had been enforcing no-fly zones for 12 years. We had driven Saddam out of Kuwait. We were trying to prop up a leaky sanctions regime. Minding our own business was not an option with respect to Iraq or the ME in general.
To Rob Lyman
OK, I take responsibility for advocating the invasion of Iraq.
Maybe I’ll say some Hail Marys or something to wash away the sin. Now will you discuss the actual issue, which is what to do next?
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You need not say the Hail Marys, but I appreciate it as a start of your re-thinking your thinking on this issue. Mind you I did not say re-thinking the issue.
What you should do is admit the blunder and stop making excuses for the continued blundering. Your comments have nothing to do with the issue, which is the blunder, but rather with defending your opinions. That is great for an argument in a bar, but not much else.
You may start by allowing morality to enter into you thinking on the subject and you just might come up with insights different from the one’s that led you to where you are now, without an idea as to what to do now and, seemingly by your above comments devoid of any moral compass to get you out of that situation.
I trust that if you do this you will come up with satisfactory opinions for yourself without my help.
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I never said that. I said that destruction of a city is not the same as destruction of a society, and hyperbole ill befits the current serious situation.
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So far the our invasion of Iraq has brought on a murderous attack by large parts of Iraqi society against the society itself. This is what Civil War is, an attempt to destroy the institutions on which a society is built. Every institution in the society is under attack from vegetable markets to Universities, to tribal structures, to law enforcement agencies et al, is under attack. Your attempt to say that it is only a city that is being destroyed is just plain wrong and it amounts to not much more than trying to hide the real problem.
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So…the US is immoral because, freed from Saddam, people want to kill each other instead of building a liberal society? I’m not sure that the immorality has been correctly located here.
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Part of the U.S, immorality is contained in your statement. The Iraquis are at fault because After we launch a very destructive war, destroy their infrastructure, dismiss their security forces in one of the most ignorant acts this county has ever been party to We blame the Iraqis for not creating a liberal society out of the anarchy we created. That my friend is very immoral.
How naive can one possible be. You go into an area that has a society that has functioned, for them, since at least the beginning of the Caliphate, complete with lines of responsibility, political institutions down to the clan level, etc., and you expect that everything will be changed because you put up a government for a couple of years and have an election.
Presto! Liberal Democracy. PLEASE!
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We weren’t doing that in 2003. We had been enforcing no-fly zones for 12 years. We had driven Saddam out of Kuwait. We were trying to prop up a leaky sanctions regime. Minding our own business was not an option with respect to Iraq or the ME in general.
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The cornerstone of an intelligent Foreign Policy is minding your own business. You do not involve yourself in situations where you do not know the outcome. This is basic strategy from the Art of War that became a seminal book for American military strategists after the Viet Nam War. The core concept is when you go to war you have already weakened your position.
We did not have to go to War against Iraq. And more than that we should never have thought of occupying Mesopotamia. Read the history of those that have tried. An invasion of Iraq in 2003 was not any of our business. The fools calling themselves Neo-Cons convinced the American public and an extremely foolish president that it was.
TOC,
“The core concept is when you go to war you have already weakened your position.”
Would this not also apply to Al Qaeda, Saddam, Taliban, etc.?
“The cornerstone of an intelligent Foreign Policy is minding your own business. You do not involve yourself in situations where you do not know the outcome. ”
Again, same question. Perhaps the outcome of their past actions is precisely where we are now.
“How naive can one possible be. You go into an area that has a society that has functioned, for them, since at least the beginning of the Caliphate, …”
But was it working for us or their neighbours? Don’t forget the mayhem being spread into surrounding areas by these various actors.
“So far the our invasion of Iraq has brought on a murderous attack by large parts of Iraqi society against the society itself. ”
No, the murderous insurgents are attacking that society. The invasion untied their hands. That part is true but place the blame for murder where it lies…with the killers.
But keep in mind that either Saddam was going to continue doing this himself or he would have fallen and the Iraqis would still be in this position anyway.
What you should do is admit the blunder and stop making excuses for the continued blundering.
If you want me to admit the “blunder,” you’ll have to convince me that the alternatives were better. You haven’t bothered to address the alternative, which was more years of no-fly-zones and leaky sanctions. You just keep repeating “mind your own business.” Again, minding our own business was not an actual option, it’s a fantasy option.
And if you want me to admit that all of society has been destroyed, you’ll have to produce some evidence on the state of play outside of Anbar. It’s not that I argue things are great, it’s that I quite literally lack the information to make an informed judgment. To be frank, I think you, and almost everyone who comments on the issue also lack this information. You can’t judge Iraq by what you see on the nightly news any more than you can judge the US by the same evidence.
The Iraquis are at fault because After we launch a very destructive war, destroy their infrastructure, dismiss their security forces in one of the most ignorant acts this county has ever been party to We blame the Iraqis for not creating a liberal society out of the anarchy we created.
Well…yes. In 1865 the South was very thoroughly smashed and occupied by a hostile army. For all the undeniable brutality of slavery and then Jim Crow, it didn’t look like the image of Iraq that you’re painting, and even adding up all the lynchings from 1865 to 1965 won’t get you close to the terrorist casualty numbers in Iraq. So it seems to me it’s possible for a society–even one destroyed by war and riven by irrational ethnic hatred–to avoid mass-murder if it wants to.
You go into an area that has a society that has functioned, for them, since at least the beginning of the Caliphate…
I guess that depends on the definition of “functioned.” But seriously, are you asserting there have been no mass-casualty wars, civil or otherwise, no pograms, no nothing involving the people of Mesopotamia since the begining of the Caliphate? I suppose you could say Saddam’s government was “working” in a certain sense, but if your big thing is morality, how moral is it to ignore his depredations? (As an aside, Iraq has caused me to abandon any hope of morality in foreign policy in favor of US interests, and to hell with everyone else.)
You do not involve yourself in situations where you do not know the outcome.
Good heavens, when have we ever involved ourselves in a situation where we did know the outcome? Are you suggesting Gulf War I was a terrible idea because we couldn’t predict what would happen in 2007? This is not a rule for foreign policy, it’s a policy of having no foreign policy.
I will be brief
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Good heavens, when have we ever involved ourselves in a situation where we did know the outcome? Are you suggesting Gulf War I was a terrible idea because we couldn’t predict what would happen in 2007? This is not a rule for foreign policy, it’s a policy of having no foreign policy.
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We knew the outcome. We would expel the Iraqis from Kuwait. We would not occupy Iraq and we would hem the Iraquis in, while keeping some semblance of a power balance in the area. We would use the minimum of resources necessary to the maximum effect. This is excellent strategy and good foreign policy.
Now take the muddle headed nonsense that was churned out to justify the Neo-Con view of the world. Drum up War hysteria, bully and divide us from our allies, doctor intelligence, rant about WMD that did not exist.
Here is the outcome. Weakening of the Atlantic Alliance. The re-opening of the region to Soviet influence, the promotion of Iranian influence in the area, the weakening of our traditional Sunni allies in the region, aligning ourselves with the Kurds, a land locked people surrounded by enemies with little or no strategic importance and, in doing so, putting ourselves in direct opposition to one of our best friends in the region, Turkey. There is more, but I won’t bore you with it. But the worst of it is that we have damaged ourselves in exposing ourselves as incompetent vis/a/vis the strategy that got us into this mess.
You keep on asking for what we should do next. Well the quick fix ideas, and the attitude that the U.S. knows what is best for people should be dropped from our thought processes. This is what I mean by minding your own business. We might also start by realizing how incredibly naive our policy has been under Bush II, In direct opposition to a masterful Foreign policy under Bush I.
I have alredy said that:
What the U.S. should be thinking about today is how they were led to commit such a colossal blunder. They might start by asking what are American interests (list them) what are the extent of American interests? Why we were completely outplayed by everyone in the ME? How we can rationalize the absolute destruction of an entire society to no apparent end.
When they figure out some of the answers to these questions then we can start repairing the damage. I doubt that any of this will happen during this administration. We also need to recognize that our occupation of Iraq is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Don’t watch television, either. It dulls your wit.
TOC,
“The core concept is when you go to war you have already weakened your position.”
Would this not also apply to Al Qaeda, Saddam, Taliban, etc.?
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I suggest you buy a copy of the Art of War and read it.
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“The cornerstone of an intelligent Foreign Policy is minding your own business. You do not involve yourself in situations where you do not know the outcome. ”
Again, same question. Perhaps the outcome of their past actions is precisely where we are now.
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I do not understand what you aretrying to get at.
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“How naive can one possible be. You go into an area that has a society that has functioned, for them, since at least the beginning of the Caliphate, …”
But was it working for us or their neighbours? Don’t forget the mayhem being spread into surrounding areas by these various actors.
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Lets say it wasn’t. But the question is was our reaction to that in anywy proportional. Our only choice was to invade and occupy Iraq?
“So far the our invasion of Iraq has brought on a murderous attack by large parts of Iraqi society against the society itself. ”
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No, the murderous insurgents are attacking that society. The invasion untied their hands. That part is true but place the blame for murder where it lies…with the killers.
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The murderous insurgents are a part of Iraqi society. The fact that we did not take that into account is our problem. Not one American in a hundred had any idea of what the Umma was, the Sunni Shia schism and what caused it, and ten thousand other things that i will not enumerate. They did not need to know these things but those in charge of Foreign policy should have. It seems they did not have a clue, nor did they listen to anyone who did.
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But keep in mind that either Saddam was going to continue doing this himself or he would have fallen and the Iraqis would still be in this position anyway.
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Maybe, maybe not. But one thing is for certain they are in the position they are in now because f our invasion and an incredibly stupid group of Foreign Policy Strategists
TOC
“I suggest you buy a copy of the Art of War and read it.”
A simple yes or no would be more desirable than trying to divine your answer.
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“The cornerstone of an intelligent Foreign Policy is minding your own business. You do not involve yourself in situations where you do not know the outcome. ”
Again, same question. Perhaps the outcome of their past actions is precisely where we are now.
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In other words, if the Art of War applies to us, does it also not apply to them? If so, they have weakened their position, as you stated. Given the interruption to their financing, bases of operation, formal training of true-believers, etc. I’d say it is true.
Next, they went into this not knowing the outcome. It could be argued that they expected another paper tiger moment instead of having the battle carried to them.
“But the question is was our reaction to that in anywy proportional. ”
What would the Art of War say about limiting ourselves to a proportional response?
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“The murderous insurgents are a part of Iraqi society. The fact that we did not take that into account is our problem. ”
Is it? Art of War?
rboggs in #4 hits the nail squarely on the head. What peace, indeed?
Rob, it’s Seattle, of course–but then I already know where you’re from. 🙂
AL, in #18: “You’re confirming my ‘clean hands’ notions about modernity – i.e. if things are bad, but we didn’t cause them, that can be OK with us.”
This reminds me of one of the most depressing things I’ve ever read–John Howard Yoder (yes, the patron saint of modern Christian pacifism) in Karl Barth and the Problem of War. Same basic idea, and one that Yoder further develops in his Magnum Opus (The Politics of Jesus): It doesn’t matter how many evil things happen in the world, as long as we can consider ourselves are blameless for them. Bleah.
Yay, 10 points to Kirk. The “Rainier” part should have been a givaway anyway. I was thinking of going with the Central District, but frankly it’s not bad enough to justify the alleged contrast anymore.
On the flip side, no points to TOC for failing to explain clearly why “we would expel Iraq from Kuwait” (and stay on the border for 12 more years, leading to one of Osama’s big complaints, that there are infidels in the holy land) counts as “knowing the outcome” but “we will topple Saddam” (and spend time fighting the insurgents) doesn’t.
Or why invading Kuwait and then chilling on the Saudi border while flying daily combat missions over Iraq counted as “minding our own business.” Or why we should want to keep our “traditional Sunni allies” (the Saudis) in the region given that they are more or less enemies who have been fooling us for years…
Bush I may have had a “masterful” foreign policy, but it doesn’t seem to have prevented the Khobar Towers (he was the reason our guys were even there), the african embassies, the Cole, WTC I or II, Saddam expelling the inspectors, or Oil for Fraud. I’m not sure we can afford much more of that sort of brilliant international relations expertise.
On the flip side, no points to TOC for failing to explain clearly why “we would expel Iraq from Kuwait” (and stay on the border for 12 more years, leading to one of Osama’s big complaints, that there are infidels in the holy land) counts as “knowing the outcome” but “we will topple Saddam” (and spend time fighting the insurgents) doesn’t.
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Well, simply look at the outcome of both strategies. Our policy in 1991 was expelling the Iraquis from Kuwait and containing them. It worked and we used the minimum amount of our resources to do so. That strategy was successful and it was also based on coalition building and strengthening our diplomatic cooperation with a large number of countries including all the world powers. this is masterful foreign policy.
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Or why invading Kuwait and then chilling on the Saudi border while flying daily combat missions over Iraq counted as “minding our own business.” Or why we should want to keep our “traditional Sunni allies” (the Saudis) in the region given that they are more or less enemies who have been fooling us for years…
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We went into Kuwait, with the backing of a broad coalition of forces and the backing of all the major powers to drive out an occupying army. We are the occupying army in Iraq, backed by “a Coalition of the Willing” and only one major power. There is a difference between the two. One good strategy and diplomacy, the other terrible strategy and diplomacy.
Our business in “chilling on the Saudi border while flying daily combat missions over Iraq counted as “minding our own business.” was to continue the strategy of containment. An excellent an cost effective strategy, by the way, in terms of troop commitment, cost and human life.
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The Saudis aren’t fooling anyone. We know who the Saudis are and we know they work in their own interest and not in ours. This is expected in Foreign Affairs. If the Saudis were fooling you, than you did not know enough about the Saudis.
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Bush I may have had a “masterful” foreign policy, but it doesn’t seem to have prevented the Khobar Towers (he was the reason our guys were even there), the african embassies, the Cole, WTC I or II, Saddam expelling the inspectors, or Oil for Fraud. I’m not sure we can afford much more of that sort of brilliant international relations expertise.
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My Bush I comment was made in the context of our policy on Iraq. What exactly do Khobar Towers, The African Embassy bombings, The Cole, WTC one and two have to do with Iraq. And how do they justify invading Iraq.
I would also add, that Saddam’s expelling inspectors and Making money on the Oil For Food Program makes a good enough case for war, either. Count up what this war has cost us and the results we have reaped and tell me how it made any sense. If there are international relations we cannot afford, it is the ignorant, half baked ideas of the Neo-Cons being executed.
I would also like to point out that the linkage of events that you made Khobar, Embassy bombings, etc. is just the type of over-simplification that the Neo-Cons used to justify the invasion. One would think that after seeing the complex and ever-shifting web of alliances and enmities in the ME over our past 70 years of involvement there, our Foreign Policy Experts in this administration would not have acted as ham-handedly as they have.
Yours and a lot of other people’s view of the invasion was manipulated by some incredibly incompetent characters as is shown by the linkage you cited above. The sooner you recognize that the better. Being conservative does not mean that you have to continue to bang your head against a brick wall. Being a Neo-Con, on the other hand does.
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TOC,
You’ll have to fogive me here, but what, in your mind, was the justification for freeing Kuwait in the first place? Would not minding our own business have been a better idea, by your lights? Because it further enmeshed us in the ME, irritated violent fundamentalists (who admittedly had no reason to like us to begin with), made us look to many like the patsies of the Saudi regime (which lacks popular support and funds jihadism worldwide), and left us permanently “containing” someone who was busily getting out from under our thumb with the active assistance of the French and the Russians. It also pushed Saddam towards supporting fundamentalist terror against Israel in an effor to curry favor with fellow Arabs.
Meanwhile, whatever we were doing, in Iraq and elsewhere, wasn’t effective at promoting our actual national interest, in which I count not getting our people blown up rather more heavily than any nifty diplomatic victories.
None of this is to say that invading Iraq was the best or only possible thing to do (not that you’ve bother to argue the alternatives). But so far I can’t make out any sensible principle that guides you. “Mind your own business” and “avoid uncertain outcomes” are certainly principles that make the Gulf War II look like a bad idea, but they also counsel against Gulf War I, especially now that many of the unintended consequences of Gulf War I have become apparent. Saddam would have sold us oil from Kuwaiti fields; what else do you care about that justifies intervention? And if you want to argue that Bush I (or Clinton) had it right, you’ve got to account for their failures, too, which include escalating terrorism emanating from, for example, the very Saudi regime we spilled blood to protect.
If Saddam was so unfriendly to terrorists, maybe we should have just let him overrun the Saudis and shut down their terrorist funding. How’s that for “minding your own business”?
I would also add, that Saddam’s expelling inspectors and Making money on the Oil For Food Program makes a good enough case for war
I take it you meant that those actions did not make a good case for war. Well. If violating the explicit terms of a cease-fire do not make a good case for resuming fire, then there is absolutely no point in cease-fire agreements at all. None.
Mr Lyman, I am sorry but I can’t waste any of my time answering these incoherent rants. Read what you just wrote and ttell me how you would expect anyone to even follow it. You are all over the place, cannot follow a discussion without throwing red herrings everywhere and appear only interested in a gotcha type argument. Sorry, it is not my cup of tea.
The last word is yours. Goodbye
#57 from Rob Lyman does not appear to me to be an incoherent rant. Or #55 from Rob Lyman. Or #50 from Rob Lyman.
#58 from TOC: “The last word is yours. Goodbye”
Goodbye.
I still don’t understand why the Bush Administration didn’t just goad Saddam into shooting down a U2 and starting the war himself. I mean, I agree with the general proposition that war was appropriate, for a host of reasons, not least of which is that all of the actors in Arabia now consider some sort of agreement with the US central to their ongoing strategies. Nobody considers such agreement with Iran equally essential.
BUT FOR GOD’S SAKE, CONSIDER THE TRAVAIL WE MIGHT HAVE AVOIDED had we simply pushed Saddam into an aggressive act! Lincoln had enough sense to do that, at Sumpter, even though the war was virtually inevitable at that point. He saw some value in that subtle tactic. Likewise, Roosevelt took a course that made someone else the aggressor, for some reason (though we paid too high a price).
We did the right thing, but we did it very very poorly. It was as though we were led by people who simply applied a formula, without recognizing the need for a living brain behind the impulse. And there’ll be no small price to be paid… Well need twice the wisdom at four times the cost.
Well. If violating the explicit terms of a cease-fire do not make a good case for resuming fire, then there is absolutely no point in cease-fire agreements at all. None.
Looks pretty damned coherent to me. Far more coherent than #58, certainly, which could best be characterized as ‘flouncing out in a huff.’
Rob,
I forgot to ask, what can I cash my 10 points in for? 🙂
Alchemist,
The death rate for street drug dealers in America is 7% a year. For our soldiers in Iraq 1/2% a year.
The average black man 16 to 25 has a 1% death rate.
We have war zones right here in America. No one notices.
When the government says Drug War they aren’t kidding.
If it was the top story on the nightly news every night America would be considered “lost”.
Jim Rockford,
Wretchard’s Three Conjecture come to mind.
Either we stop these fools or we will have to kill them all. I’m with you. Better to stop them before we have to go all Hiroshima on them.
#57 Rob,
avoid uncertain outcomes
Prediction is hard, especially about the future.
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What I would like to avoid is certain outcomes. If America or Israel gets hit hard enough a nuclear war will ensue. That is a certain outcome I’d like to avoid.
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I understand though. In 1936 all the Europeans wanted to do was to avoid 10,000 certain deaths from a confrontation with Germany. And by golly they avoided that certain outcome.
The results of avoidance tured out to be rather uncertain after all. Who at the beginning of 1939 even could predict 50 million dead by Sept ’45? In January of 1942 was even 10 million dead on the horizon?
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So the question you have to ask yourselves: are we dealing with the USSR or Nazi Germany? Are we dealing with cold calculators? Or frenzied mad men? Are we looking at an enemy who has a plan for paradise on Earth? Or is paradise to be obtained elsewhere? A chicken in every pot or Valhalla?
Once you know that you can decide what effort is worth it.
If an enemy is undeterrable then you have to kill enough of them so that their followers lose faith.
Here is a little hint to help you along: “Mein Kampf” is a best seller in the Middle East.
So they [the Government] go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent. Sir Winston Churchill, Hansard, November 12, 1936
Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat.
Winston Churchill
One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Winston Churchill
Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. Winston Churchill
War is mainly a catalogue of blunders. Winston Churchill
If you are going through hell, keep going. Winston Churchill
In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might. Winston Churchill
Moral of the Work. In war: resolution. In defeat: defiance. In victory: magnanimity. In peace: goodwill. Winston Churchill
Never, never, never give up. Winston Churchill
Sure I am of this, that you have only to endure to conquer. Winston Churchill
If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.
Winston Churchill
Now gentlemen measure yourselves against that kind of will. Do you have the courage to say no defeat is final.
So Iraq is going badly.
So what?
Our enemies are stalemated just as much as we are. We only have to fight one day more than they do. However long that takes.
Kirk,
10 points and $6.00 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. I suggest Madison St. just before Broadway–there are 2 of them literally facing each other, so it doesn’t matter which way you’re driving.
My last word is: feh. I don’t even necessarily disagree with TOC, but I don’t understand his thinking well enough to say for sure.
P Dhimmi:
Thanks for your thoughful comment. As you say we can interpret events differently with the same set of facts. At least we use facts. My point, made another way is that we Americans do not understand the limits of power, and our politicians use simplistic models to explain away everything. Essentially, we have wasted our time, and squandered our resources in a manner that leaves us worse off. We have worked agaisnt our own interests. We should let it go.
wf: I am not anti war. I don’t even think it should be a last resort. But I do think it should be used wisely. And it has not. We imagine threats that are not real. Saddam was not a threat to the USA, and he never was.
Rob Lyman: yutz.
TOC: Yes, indeed!
#68 Tom,
Saddam was not a threat to the USA, and he never was.
WTC1, attempt on Bush I’s life, firing on our aircraft.
A. Q. Kahn, Libya, Iraq.
M Simon
Saddam was not a threat to the USA, and he never was.
“WTC1, attempt on Bush I’s life, firing on our aircraft.”
OOOH How scary! What a scaredy cat you are. That is laughable.
We invade a country because of feeble AA fire on our airplanes which misses! But didn’t I read some later reports that we provoked that AA fire so that we could bomb the Iraqi infrustructure in the leadup to the invasion.
So now we are stuck there. Dying in the sand. Fortunately the country is as feeble as you are and won’t be able to bear this much longer. They’ve decided that whatever we are trying to do there isn’t worth the sacrifice any longer.
#69 M. Simon:
I am not sure I follow the specifics of your point, but I get the general thrust. I try to apply, best that I can, one universal standard. We can’t complain about assassination as policy because we use it too. WTC1 was carried out by religious fundamentalists, also opposed to Saddam. Firing on our aircraft is understandable, because I would fire on any hostile aircraft over my own country, cost of doing business. A.Q. Khan should have been assassinated years ago. Iraq presented no threat of any kind to the USA. Libya interestingly, has changed its policies. Recently the Bush administration signed an agreement with Qaddafi, that was rejected by the Clinton administration. Attacking Afghanistan made sense. I suggested at the time, that we should come to an arrangement with India, and wipe Pakistan off the map. Then establish a variety of autonomous or independent states in the area of Pakistan-Afghanistan, and reunify peoples separated by that ridiculous line of control. I think it important to be accurate, apply one standard, pursue our interests, expect others to do the same, and eschew the temptation to see others not like us as less than human.