I went through the points raised in the comments to the post on “Why Not Iraq” below, and boiled them down to the list of ones I feel were the strongest (i.e. the ones that I felt had to be addressed to maintain my position).
# The war is unwinnable, because the insurgency is too powerful politically and militarily to be defeated within the time material resources and political will allow for the U.S. presence.
# The war is unwinnable because the Administration has no coherent plan.
# The war was a distraction from the hunt for Osama Bin Laden and the fight against terrorism.
# We are creating Islamist terrorists throughout the Middle East by occupying Iraq.
# The war used up money and manpower which could/should have been used to secure our borders, airports, and ports.
# The war has cost us allies in Europe and the Middle East, and damaged our standing and ability to lead in the world.
# Saddam was deterrable, and so controllable, unlike the Islamist fanatics likely to replace him.
# Containment was working, and so there was no need to invade.
# America’s image is not that of a country that launches preemptive wars.
# Going to war was a violation of the UN Charter, and the US conduct of the war has been a violation of the laws of war.
# The Administration’s case for the war was selective, inaccurate, and based more in supporting the Administration’s already-made decision than in guiding it.
# The pre-war planning ignored virtually all post-war issues, from the military to the political to the economic to the humanitarian.
I’ll plead bias, even though I did the best I could, and am open to ways that this list should be edited or changed. Take a look at them, and over the week, I’ll start responding to them one or two at a time, and a discussion will hopefully break out.
As a corollary or addition to 5, I would also argue that committing resources to Iraq makes it more difficult to respond quickly to other imminent military threats if they arise. In other words, it has compromised our military readiness.
Reasons for Iraq War:
1) Tip the balance of power in the Middle East permanently in the direction of the Shiites… simultaneously reversing the progress of Sunni pan-arabist leftism, Sunni pan-arabist Islamism (on the right) and serves the important function of reminding anyone and everyone that an attack on the USA will get your entire society’s economic and military position turned on its ear.
George Bush, in establishing a permanent Shiite hegemony over Mesopotamia…is inarguably more successful than Richard the Lionhearted ever thought of being. Bush puts the future Shiite ownership of Mekkah into play. That puts Bush or Rumsfeld in the categories of Emperor Augustus or Alexander the Great.
Leftists will say it is pejorative that Bush achieved more irreversible damage to political Sunni Islam than the Crusades (which caused no damage to Sunni Islam but at least stopped their left flank from advancing through France). That just shows how that this discussion is NOT ABOUT IRAQ! It is about liberal nihilism, progressive elitism and neurotic guilt. Leftists don’t even belong at the table of Realpolitical calculations because they don’t think it is fair to take resources and wealth away from sworn enemies.
Leftists would be consistent in saying that the Russians made a mistake in winning the battle of Stalingrad, because Stalingrad caused Nazi recruitment levels to go through the roof and tons of teenage German boys wanted to go off to fight after Stalingrad.
2) Flypaper Strategy: Expose anti-Americans worldwide and especially in the Middle East. In war you are supposed to slaughter as many enemy males as possible while keeping civilians alive. But, in this war, 99% of the enemy’s reserve fighting force was cynically laughing and sitting home with their moms and sisters, knowing that it would take just 19 volunteers to nuke Washington and New York in 4 years time. The idea of the Iraq War and Occupation was to get these evil and cynical young Sunnis off their butts and into their graves were they belonged. This war would have had no set-piece battles without Bush creating an open and definable battlefield in Iraq (especially in towns like Fallujah and those along the Euphrates) where terrorists that would be otherwise held in “reserve” at the mom’s house in Yemen, could go to die. Pulling Yemenis, Egyptians and Saudis to Iraq to die served the purpose of NOT killing them with nukes along with their mothers and sisters when the inevitable terror nuke would have gone off in the USA had we just pulled back from an America-hating Middle East after the Afghanistan War that they hated us for anyway.
The Flypaper Strategy has also served the purpose of exposing the fault lines of leftism vs rightism around the entire world, for instance revealing once again that Argentinians are NOT our best friends, etc. Thousands of foreign leftists are now unable to enter the USA because of their anti-American behavior. The Iraq War helped us to expose them for what they are. We can see a gambit going on with Venezuela. It opens our eyes, but the extreme leftism has been going on in Venezuela for a long time.
Regarding Germany: I live in Germany and the pro-Bush conservatives just “won” but will have to share power with the opportunistic center left party of Gerhard Schroeder. Most of Eastern Europe is pro-Bush and Pro-Iraq liberation.
Russia is anti-democracy…but Putin announced during the 3 week Iraq War that the Americans had a right to do what THEY thought was necessary for security, even if he personally wanted to stay out of that war.
It isn’t Bush’s fault if France and Belgium are basket cases of leftism where abortions outnumber births.
No American needs to “wring his hands” with grief that leftists don’t like Bush in another country. We are not going to be safe from terrorism when another Bill Clinton earns everyone’s love and admiration. Bill Clinton’s USA was attacked many times by Al Qaeda as they grew in deadliness and training.
3) In war, the first order of business, for which you WILL LOSE if you don’t attend to it, is taking the money and resources away from the enemy. In Iraq, we took $2B per year away from the pan-arabic anti-American movement that was funding suicide bombing and was working with and harboring Al Qaeda according to the 9-11 Commission and according to their own daily rhetoric about being openly happy about 9-11.
4) The Libyan nuke program WAS the Iraqi WMD program. When leftists say there was no WMD found in Iraq…my blood pressure goes way up because tht is only TECHNICALLY correct. In reality, Bush would have lied to everyone about the WMD being in Iraq because people of only an average IQ cannot recognize that it is often best to cut off funding for programs (by capturing oil fields for instance) than to try to attack the program’s offices and factories themselves (which could otherwise just regroup and buy new equipment with continued oil revenue financing).
The Libyan nuke program folded 2 days after the financier, Saddam, was captured. Only a hardcore leftist would try to pretend that the British had been making good progress on that score and didn’t need Saddam to be captured to make a deal with Libya. Saddam would have given mega bucks to someone else anyway. Capturing the oil fields were the best way to stop nuclear programs.
And these points are just the tip of the iceberg…
Hi AL,
You forgot an important one – there were other rogue states that could have/should have got the kicking they deserved earlier. I suppose its an extension of the “not really fighting Al Qaida” argument.
John Pike and I kicked this one around a bit back in March. Here’s my post “Pre-emptive War – Why Not?” which posits the question – why wasn’t Pakistan ahead of Iraq on the list?
There are tons of reasons to put Pakistan firmly in the category of “rogue state”, a danger to world peace and stability. Yet General Musharraf has been warmly welcomed by both Blair and Bush as an “ally” in the war on terror and no-one wants to rock the boat as long as the General makes the right noises even if some facts say otherwise.
It’s worth asking the question here: are our (The West’s)reasons for “pre-emptive” warfare going to be based on consistent morals, or are they to be cheapened by expediency? If the latter, we should admit it and get off our collective high horse about fighting terrorism and nuclear proliferation.
Regards, Cernig
A few points to clear up from yesterday:
North Korea had no huge oil revenues coming in with which to fund terrorism. On the contrary, the Norks were starving and under the stewardship of China. China knows it will be nuked if a Nork nuke is ever used against the USA. So the Norks are essentially part of a Cold War with China that isn’t necessarily that worrisome (but needs to be closely watched – Bush needs to take Nork nukes more seriously than Clinton took them or Pakistani nukes).
I think everyone here needs to understand that a showdown with Iran is very likely before the 2006 US elections. One small terror attack in the USA, or if Bush were to finally draw a line in the sand against Iranian meddling in Iraq (killing US soldiers is an act of war), could swing a majority of Americans back behind winning this war as opposed to losing it.
Leftists might have gotten warm and fuzzy feelings when I suggested that another Bill Clinton could make “everyone” love us again. By that, you mean “all the leftists” love us again. Conservative Islamists would have wanted John Kerry for breakfast if Kerry had been elected. Angela Merkel, the Polish Government and the new Iraqi Government would NOT have respected a President Kerry. He would have been batted around like a beach ball.
Much worse, a President Kerry would have been tested on his statement that terrorism is a criminal “nuisance”. There would have been terror attacks made in America just so the Saudi clerics or Iranian hardliners could laugh as Kerry sent the keystone cops out to find the individual perpetrators while allowing those countries to get nuclear suitcase bombs prepared for the 2008 destruction of the USA.
Anyone who is serious about keeping track of progress in Iraq should read http://www.strategypage.com.
StrategyPage is not a right wing site.
Also, http://www.debka.com is a great place to get news that is either completely not true or so secret that it disappears from the site after 12 hours…but six months later turns out to have been what really happened.
The last place to get news is a place like the Washington Post or New York Times. Speed read those leftist ideological religious newsletters…but get your real news online at a whole of blogs. The best newsticker blog is http://www.FreeRepublic.com and I would say that even if I were still a liberal.
[There are tons of reasons to put Pakistan firmly in the category of “rogue state”]
In September 2001, Colin Powell read Pakistan the riot act: you will cooperate with us or we will completely destroy all of you. The cooperation had to include the killing or changing of the anti-American power elites (and we may never know if it also included secretly surrendering the 23 nuclear bombs Pakistan had in their arsenal in 2001). What really went on in Pakistan is probably still a big secret, but it appears that Mushareff has been really working with Bush and Mushareff really was the target of Al Qaeda assassinations and Al Qaeda leaders really were just killed or captured in Pakistan over the weekend.
The situation in Iraq was different. I have already said many times that Saddam was “in the way” of giving the Shiites the balance of power in the Middle East. Even if Saddam was our friend and was cooperating, Realpolitik would have us stab him and the Republican Guard officers in the back and hand their country over to the Shiite majority.
9-11 made it imperative to reverse Sunni Islam geographically and give land to Shiites as a way of telling the Sunnis to stop acting in such a suicidal manner as 9-11 showed them to be in. If you don’t understand this, you don’t understand the Iraq War at all and cannot talk about it like adults.
Agree.
1) Pakistan HAS nuclear weapons. We are so worried about Iran getting them, but Pakistan already HAS them.
2) Pakistan is where binLaden/Zawahiri are probably hiding, and they have many sympathizers there.
3) The AQ Khan nuclear dealership is scary, far more scary than killing a mere 3000 Americans.
This is a problem, a bigger one than Iran, I think. Musharaff may be cooperating with us, but if a nuke is ever used on US soil in an act of terrorism, the investigation will find the source to be within Pakistan..
[2) Pakistan is where binLaden/Zawahiri are probably hiding, and they have many sympathizers there.]
Most would assume that Iran is where Al Qaeda are hiding.
You are suggesting that a leftist American president like John Kerry would attack Pakistan?
A gust of fresh air from Armedliberal.
Michael Ware, the journalist has a sobbering view from Iraq and the guerilla war against the Occupiers. The Occupiers’ enemy is elusive and abstract, he maintains, and the fight in Ramadi is fierce. He says the equivalent of a Tet Offensive occured in four places in Iraq last week, with waves of guerillas attacking.
Abraham tanks blown up.
In the time he spent embedded with the US troops he says they never saw the enemy. Bombs set off using cell phones and sears garage door openers
Sounds to me like it’s time to come home and put the Humvee in the garage, folks.
[Most would assume that Iran is where Al Qaeda are hiding.]
By the way, herein lies the BEST argument against the Iraq War:
If the Iranians are allied with Al Qaeda against the Saudi Royal Family, then why did George Bush just give them a six lane highway into Saudi Arabia should the US lose control over the Iraqi Forces via possible Iranian assassinations at the top of the new Iraqi government??
If Al Qaeda is allied with Iranian hardliners, does the Sunni arab “street” fear or NOT fear an Al Qaeda/Persian conquest of their governments?
If they would not fear Iranian Shiite help in removing their pro-American dictatorships, then Bush made a mistake in giving the Shiites a six lane highway into the heart of the Sunni world (but this can be corrected by going to war over Iran which seems necessary anyway).
I guess Jim Peterson’s role is to write such bizarre pro-war argumets that whatever Dan Darling says later will look pretty sensible. What jumped out at me first is that even by his own statement, fighting the War on Terror via Iraq has been a terrible failure.
In regurgitating the Flypaper Strategy, Peterson says that 99 percent of the terrorists were laughing at us while 19 of them brought the battle to our homeland. (Even after we invaded Iraq only half that amny were needed to bring it to Madrid, but never mind.) OK, that works out to about 2000 terrorists. By the most conservative estimates we are facing over 20,000 insurgents in Iraq, not counting those remaining in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and embedded in the West already. Some idea of brilliant success: multiplying the number of the enemy by 10!
I think you left out the MAIN reason for opposition to the war in the U.S..
Defeating terrorists in Iraq (or anywhere else) strengthens the political party that elected George Bush and weakens the party that didn’t.
[He says the equivalent of a Tet Offensive occured in four places in Iraq last week]
Please read StrategyPage.com to get a better perspective on how many insurgents got captured due to the foolish publicity stunts performed last week. The Tet Offensive was a desperate move that caused North Vietnam to want to end the war…until the American left begged North Vietnam to continue fighting and killing Americans after the offensive was brutally put down by US forces.
Armed Liberal: Seriously speaking…the niveau of the discussion is greatly lowered by creating the conditions where all the liberals simply ignore widely known “debates” like those over the Tet Offensive, and just tow the line that the leftist press towed in 1968: that the Tet Offensive was and should have been a “victory” over an imperialist USA (it is true that the journalists’ agenda driven reporting on the Tet Offensive was a victory of nihilism over common sense).
Uneducated people imply the Tet Offensive was anything but the destruction of the Viet Cong (73,000 killed but that number included some NVA in Hue). The North Vietnamese leaders were probably happy about the Viet Cong’s destruction as a consolation prize for the NVA’s failure to capture and hold Hue (after the NVA massacred a lot of innocent civilians there). You see, the North Vietnamese wanted to control South Vietnam completely and not have to compete with those 73,000 + 60,000 (killed in the Phoenix Program) “local communists.”
Only 4000 US troops died in the Tet Offensive compared to the 73,000 Viet Cong and NVA. Most Americans died fighting professional NVA troops, not insurgents. Back in WW2, America could lose 4000 troops in one day and still be motivated to fight evil. But 4000 troops in a few months in Southeast Asia did hurt morale at home, where the journalists did their best NOT to tell the public that 73,000 enemy had been killed and the back permanently broken for the Viet Cong as opposed ot the North Vietnamese Army (NVA).
The history of war is filled with examples of this kind of backstabbing between erstwhile allies: for instance, the Soviets halted their offensive on Warsaw in 1944 because they wanted the Nazis to kill all the Jews in the ghetto uprising first. Communists in France fired on American troops who didn’t move into Germany (and get out of France) fast enough during WW2 after France was liberated.
The Tet Offensive was a last desperate battle for the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese just encouraged them to die so foolishly (like the current suicide bombers). The Viet Cong did not later “win” the war as leftist revisionists would like to romantically believe. It was the North Vietnamese who took South Vietnam by default when nobody else wanted it by the time April 1975 came around.
The American Army did the North Vietnamese communist leaders a favor by exposing, drawing out, and slaughtering most of the “Viet Cong insurgency” during the Tet Offensive. There were hardly any Viet Cong left after that. Continued fighting in South Vietnam occured, of course, because the North Vietnamese funded by China and the Soviet Union still wanted to win South Vietnam for themselves. The NVA took to cynically hiding in Cambodia on the border, knowing that American leftists would get really upset when the US Army made raids on NVA camps 100 feet across the border. “We are illegally invading Cambodia” they would cry…and four students at Kent State were shot for what the majority of Americans considered treason at the time (but Ohio residents were prodded by the press to allow the Ohio government to make payments to the families of the students).
The Americans pulled out of Vietnam a few years later, after experiencing much less intense warfare, because China had split with the Soviet Union and no longer wanted to support revolutions in other Asian countries. This is not an opinion.
South Vietnam became of no strategic importance to the USA and the capitalist world at that moment.
In 1975, the North Vietnamese NVA were able to conquer a lonely and forlorn South Vietnam without the meddling of the South Vietnamese Viet Cong (who were mostly dead) and without the USA caring too much about what had become a mute point in the face of China’s new economic cooperation as opposed to military aggression against the capitalist Asian allies of the USA (there would have been a Thai War in 1967 if things hadn’t happened the way they did).
Still, 2.5 million Indochinese were then killed by the communists thanx to a mostly liberal US Congress not wanting to help South Vietnam with any money at all in the face of Soviet billions in hard currency used against South Vietnam.
Back to Iraq:
We and the Iranian hardliners might only WISH that the Iranian government would pay the Sunni insurgents to conduct a real Tet-style offensive against US troops right now…so they could expose themselves better to bullets…and make the Sunni world weaker in the face of Iranian hardliners…and closer to finally realizing that only the USA could save them from the Shiites.
There is a similarity between Vietnam and Iraq: Both wars were fought with strategic objectives that leftists REFUSE to understand or even discuss. The Vietnam War was about reversing China’s foreign policy and it succeeded. The Iraq War is about reversing Sunni Islamist foreign policy by giving them a new enemy.
Success or failure in the Iraq War will be determined by what the Shiite Muslims do to help us reverse Sunni Islamist foreign policy, and therein opinions among the Sunni arab “street” on whether Canadians, British and Americans need to be incinerated in cities like Toronto or London or not.
IF WE FAIL IN IRAQ, it will only mean that ANOTHER REGIME CHANGE is necessary in Iran. I believe that this regime change has not yet happened because Bush was saving it for the 2006 or 2008 election cycle. What failure in Iraq WILL NOT MEAN, is the “necessary” election of a leftist American Congress or leftist American president…unless someone like Joe Biden convinces the public that he will not leave the Iranian regime in power in order to scare Americans into voting conservative forever.
Failure in Iraq would mean that not enough force was applied to Iran when it could have been.
Basically, when you fail at something, you set it right. You change your course. Courses that could be changed include the following:
1) Regime change in Iran. Easily done militarily because our troops are already in Iraq and Afganistan surrounding Iran (it takes the mind of a hardcore debate-obstructionist to say that the US is “tied down” in Iraq without taking note of how easily US troops can now line up on a long border with Iran). Oil revenues then going into the hands of pro-American Persians with the backing of the overwhelming majority of the Iranian people. Five years of pin-prick suicide attacks would follow. I don’t know what Pakistan’s Al Qaeda supporters would do in terms of terrorism.
2) Altering Al Jazeera’s message via better influence on Al Jazeera’s management which is only a few blocks away from US military HQ. We never had to or could have bombed them. But make the management an offer it couldn’t refuse? You bet. I don’t understand George Bush in this regard. Bill Clinton would have bombed Al Jazeera if it didn’t tow his line.
3) Pulling troops out of Iraqi towns into the desert outposts…so the Shiites could teach the Sunni insurgents lessons that US troops wouldn’t have been allowed to teach.
Those who think the leftist option is possible: that of removing the main tool of realpolitical power from the Middle East (disingenuously referred to by the left with fake affection as “the troops”)…are refusing to recognize the reality that a single car bomb exploding in the USA would cause the American public to want another regime change.
I’m astounded that the miles of existant archives now would show Peterson’s revised history as being the story of Vietnam. I don’t think they do.
I doubt there are many adherents to his version.
America has unfortunately already failed in Iraq. And I’m not the first to say it.
America has failed the civilized world it seems, and is in more disrepute than ever.
Yet the denenial of that is rampant.
Twelve is the answer.
The war is on in these pages. I support the war. I think all the people whom have not come to the conclusion that the Bush administration has turned this into shit are craven political hacks.
As Bill Roggio has constantly pointed out the military on the ground has responded to the situation to achieve victory on _THEIR
OWN INTIATIVE_. The Administration has done nothing but mouth platitiudes: we will be greeted w. roses and as liberators, we do not do nation building, we will stay this course till_VICTORY_
How many times has this changed?
I’ve had enough of the cowardice on these pages.
Since I am going to call you cowards out I am obligated to provide a solution political and by other means(_WAR_).
Political
1 Go to a higher defcon alert and inform PRC not
to start action about Taiwan_QUIETLY_(can not
have bad actors on exposed flanks)
2 Fire Rumsfield immediately
3 Fire everyone involved in torture memos in-
cluding current AG
3a Follow Gen Pace’s instructions regarding tor-
ture; _STOP IT_
4 Call for the immediate return of all detainees
of US physical control
4a house them in Guantanomo(sic?)
4b begin an immediate open debate on what is the
best way to deal w/ them long term in congress
for the purpose of changing our laws to deal w/
the reality of 4G non state actors(in this case
Jihadists)
5 Combine State Dept teams for rebuilding w/
military units for the rebuilding of civilian
infrastructure in Iraq
6 Take control of Iraqi oil ministry and issue
nontransferable shares in it to every Iraqi
7 Call in every country/company that has on the
ground infrastructure in place to upgrade what
exists instead of American companies rebuilding
it(electric, sewage and water being the most
critical)
7a Use those countries soldiers to protect those
assets(France has the Legion to do the job)
8 Use the Marine strategy and tactic of embedding
officers and NCO’s into every town to stiffen
the backbone of the Iraqi forces
9 Tell Turks to shut up in return for extreme
pressure from USA to speed up entry into EU and
special access to Iraqi oil
(should have been done along time ago except for
religious discrimination on part of US and EU)
10 Offer -EVERY_ media outlet embedding into
coali-tion units on permanent 1yr minimum
basis(unit goes on redeployment they go w/
them). Tell the story at home and abroad.
11 Reallocate communication sprectrum by fiat so
first responders can talk to one another(F any
communication co that doesn’t want to go along
by revoking their rights. They do not pay for
that which is needed)
Military
1 Immediate end to the use F16, Warthogs, Harriers
and other air forces to provide fire support
1a Helicopters and tanks only for fire support
2 see 4c
3 End all impediments to home front personnel from
being reimbursed for body armour immediately
even if this results in fraud(you can’t keep do-
ing things that erode homefront morale)
4 An accounting of training schedules for Iraqi
military and police personnel. Explain readiness
terms so public understands it and end stupid
debate of how many and when is clear.
5 No more taking a town and then leaving it with-
out forces to hold it. This may mean some places
will be bandit territory for awhile
6 Black op operations into Syria
to destroy all water resources within fifty
miles of Iraqi border
6a Immediate joint ops in Saudi Arabia to seal
border areas to avoid problem(Make as public
announcement as possible
7 Seal Iranian border w/ Iraqi and coalition
forces
8 Remove all contract security personnel whom are
not direct employees of US Govt. Their status
will inevitably cause problems on the ground.
Lastly tellJoe Katzman to get a spine. If calling bush Hitler is unacceptable from the Left it has to be from the right. O’Reilly is out of control
Great new post above, not because I agree with it all, but because it obviously comes from someone who would think of alternative ways of winning. The leftist posters here want the USA and the west to lose.
And to Vikanter: I live in Germany and I am very pro-democracy (pro-war people are those who want the insurgency to continue) and, no, nobody I’ve met believes the USA has let the world down: about half the people just assume that Iraqi Sunnis were minding their own business before the war and now need to stop having the temper tantrum that Bush “shouldn’t” have caused them to have.
Maybe, amoung drug-addicts and unemployed student slackers, there are those who would say the USA has let the world down. I don’t meet such people.
[I guess Jim Peterson’s role is to write such bizarre pro-war argumets that whatever Dan Darling says later will look pretty sensible.]
In other words, you are going to shrink away from a discussion about how the new Shiite power in the Middle East is just a “side effect” instead of the main reason for the entire war?
You are using the excuse, probably, that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld weren’t smart enough to know that they would be altering 1200 years of Sunni Muslim history in favor of Shiite Muslims.
[In regurgitating the Flypaper Strategy,]
This is getting intellectually dangerous. What I think you are trying to say by using the word “regurgitating” is that the Flypaper Strategy is a myth that Rumsfeld never thought of. It is just a figment of overly active conservative conspiracy theorists, right?
To a leftist, those of us who wanted the liberation of Iraq were caught with our pants down. We didn’t think that Sunnis would mind when we ripped them out of the Army and took all oil revenues purposefully out of their hands?
If you are going to argue against the Flypaper Strategy…you have to suggest that the young Sunni arab men that are caught on the flypaper would have been flower shop cashiers or gay rights activists if the western media opposition to George Bush hadn’t used the Iraq War excuse to motivate them.
You also don’t seem to understand that those Sunni arab males that go to fight in Iraq are NOT the more honorable of their home communities. They are the local street criminals and losers. Every day in Iraq, US Marines wipe out an entire arab town’s criminals (locals often fight together).
Plus, the main motivation for Syrian insurgent losers is because they were told that Iraqi Sunni girls were sexually hot for insurgents. They have produced a few porn movies to help recruit in Syria. This is the low-life scum that, if removed in large enough numbers, does have a positive effect on the home communities regardless of whether Al Jazeera lionizes the scum.
The arab communities can then move on toward democracy without goons around to stop them.
The whole effectiveness of this strategy would, of course, depend on the actual number of insurgents and foreign fighters killed and how much the swamp is drying up.
Leftists will say the use of women bombers in the past few weeks is a sign that the Flypaper Strategy is not working because it only causes a never-ending “revenge” syndrome to take place.
But this “never-ending revenge cycle” argument is weak because it implies that you just should have let them build a fascist superpower.
Remember: Stalingrad caused a huge recruitment boost for Nazis and teenage Wehrmacht volunteers. Were the Soviets wrong to crush an entire German Army at Stalingrad simply because it motivated the hatred of young Germans whipped up by the propaganda of Goebbels?
What is the difference between Goebbels whipping up propaganda after the defeat of Stalingrad and Al Jazeera and The Guardian whipping some arabs into a frenzy after the defeat at Fallujah?
No difference. In war, the enemy press will always use your victories to whip up hatred against you so the war would not end.
Tell me honestly, would you want Al Qaeda to suddenly announce a ceasefire because the US troops fought honorably and Al Qaeda respects that?
Would you want the war to end by having senior Sunni clerics announce that they had originally only wanted to fight a decadent leftist west but found that the west was decadent and leftist after all, so they will ceasefire as a result?
Would you want peace under those terms?
Would you?
Or will you be honest and say you want the war to continue until the “world” agrees that your religious ideology is correct?
Let’s go back to the “Revenge Cycle” argument:
But look at that closely: Both the famous female suicide suicide bombers of the past few weeks had just lost their husbands and all their brothers and an uncle to US forces. That sounds like, in the families of low-life criminals, only the women are left.
After WW2, it seemed only women were left in many German families. That was a sign that the Allies had WON the war back then.
You would be changing the goalposts (and the rules of history) by suggesting that grieving women who’ve lost all their men…present a strategic danger to the power that killed all the men. Normally, killing all the men was the right thing to do.
A german woman could have nuked the USA for the crime the USA committed in defeating the Nazis.
A Serbian woman could and still can nuke an American city because Clinton let Chirac and Schroeder convince him to attack Serbia in 1999.
Sure, a Sunni Arab woman can nuke NY because her brothers and husband were all killed in Iraq.
But her handlers would have sent one of her brothers to nuke New York if Iraq had not been liberated.
[Some idea of brilliant success: multiplying the number of the enemy by 10!]
I don’t get your fuzzy math or your attitude.
We don’t know the numbers of dead enemy in this war. Some generals have let “slip” that it has been upwards of 40,000 per year killed or captured. Others suggest it is around 5,000 per year. My *opinion* on this is that the number is a lot higher in real life than announced, because the press would otherwise be asking how this group of 200 fighters was killed, etc, thus possibly exposing methods and tricks that cause large numbers of enemy to die all at once.
Hannibal tricked an entire Roman Army of 40,000 men into walking beside a deep lake by a hill. Hannibal’s troops rushed down the hill and the Romans thought they could wade into the lake or swim away. Rumsfeld is like Hannibal. Except he may be keeping his methods secret to use over and over again.
But another question is where your loyalties really lie. Would you personally not report anyone who told you they had a cousin or relative fighting with the insurgents in Iraq?
You are aware that US soldiers can go most anywhere in the world and tell others that they fought in Iraq. Not so insurgents. They will be hunted down for the next thirty years, if not given clemency and told to shut up about what they did.
Would you want every Al Qaeda supporter who takes up arms against the west to be killed if you could wave your hand and make it happen? Yes or no? A leftist might just say no.
If you could set up a team of eavesdroppers who would successfully identify 100,000 Al Qaeda sympathising Arab males, would you or would you not give the list to the appropriate authorities?
In war, you kill, capture or at least identify as many enemy fighters as you can possibly can…preferably by tricking them onto a field of your choosing, as Hannibal taught the modern world.
The Sunnis don’t have to fight democracy in Iraq. They are going to lose to 80% of the population no matter what. The USA could pull out tomorrow and the Iraqi Sunnis would only get slaughtered faster.
The number of insurgents killed since March 2003 has been significant enough to alter entire neighborhoods back in their home communities. Those neighborhoods don’t have their criminals around anymore.
That is called “draining the swamp” and is another name for the Flypaper Strategy.
The swamp terminilogy has been used dozens of times in Bush and Rummy speeches.
If it doesn’t work, the alternative solution in the face of a nuke attack on the USA, will be the nuking of Cairo and Riyad and Medina and Jeddah and about 40 other cities.
In light of that, would you prefer that Bush is successful with liberating the Middle East from Islamist power or unsuccessful?
Tom — ALL of the professional military histories of Vietnam paint Tet as a complete massacre of the Vietcong by the US Military; primarily the Marines. The Marines completely destroyed the Vietcong in Hue; taking relatively few casualties.
The Press however JUST LIKE IRAQ portrayed it as an unmitigated defeat for the US and the Marines. Contemporaneous accounts and memoirs show the complete fallacy of the Press in reporting the “defeat” of the US forces, by reporters and editors with no military experience and who were not embedded with the troops who were fighting.
To believe that against all historical evidence (including that of the NVA commanders who left accounts or survived) that Tet was a Vietcong victory is an article of faith by an American hating leftist.
The primary argument against the Iraq War was that naive and foolish (the technical word is stupid) that acting like other nations are like fellow family members and primarily motivated by “love” and thus America’s security was best secured by being “loved.” This argument resonates for Hollwyood and Academia which yearns to be “loved.” Ordinary working men and women seek love in their families and voluntary associations; the workplace is where achievement garners respect and advancement, not “love.”
Nearly all of the anti-War arguments boil down to America no longer being “loved and respected” by being Mr. Nice Guy. That Clinton’s (and to be fair every other President’s from Nixon on) response to terrorism by Al Qaeda and provocation by Iraq (assassination attempt on G HW Bush; sanctuary and stipends for various terrorists who murdered Americans including 1993 WTC bomber Abdul Rahman Yassin and Abu Nidal; firing on US planes patrolling the “no-fly” zones to insure no repeat of 300,000 Shias and 300,000 Kurds being massacred, offers of alliances with bin Laden [as seen in the 1998 indictment of bin Laden by Clinton] and so on) was best handled by very minimal military responses would work if America just kept at it.
Self-evidently the policy of minimal force and relying on UN/International consensus had led to ever escalating terrorist attacks and provocations over the period 1970-2001. Starting with hijacking of planes and assassinations of US diplomats and ending with the brutal murder of 3,000 innocent Americans (or are they “Little Eichmans” as Leftists style them?) The American people have concluded that the policy of appeasement and restraint failed to deter attacks, and wanted to make an example of someone in the Arab world to make the point that being our overt enemy was a big mistake.
It’s notable that Cindy Sheehan, John Kerry, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, Ward Churchill, and Michael Moore have not made the “FDR argument” that the War was an ill-conceived and poorly fought half-measure that left Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Iran untouched and that the proper solution was a massive national mobilization on the scale of WWII to “out-resource” poor and tribal nations and fix the problem in a massive way. Instead we get the “we are not loved” stuff which is telling (critics really project policy to be all about THEM and their psychological needs not national security).
It’s also telling that none comment on the lesson of Iraq: Arabs are incapable of ousting tyrants who also misrule (Saddam’s Palaces while his people starved are the definition of misrule) and only the Americans and their military can fix things.
[revised history as being the story of Vietnam. I don’t think they do.]
Think again. All credible historians show the Tet Offensive to have been a military failure of the communists…but some harp on it being a psychological victory over America while others note this was caused by the press not giving Americans the full story.
[I doubt there are many adherents to his version.]
It is a known fact by those who take the time to study the Vietnam War. Leftists don’t take the time for such things. They just grab “talking points.” That is why their posts are so short on this thread. They have no backup for their religious beliefs. Just the beliefs themselves.
The Vietnam War as a “failure of the businessmen” is a foundation of the leftist religion.
It has nothing to do with any knowledge or care about foreign policy…and everything to do with the individual’s own personal attitude toward businesses and businessmen who might have turned them down for a job and, as the above poster described, not “loving them.”
I know first hand that journalists are mostly men who were turned down for real jobs at businesses and took a low paying reporting position to make ends meet or, if they have jobs at businesses, want an amicable work environment more than actual business success.
[America has unfortunately already failed in Iraq.]
Please expound on how “unfortunate” this was for your belief system. How has it hurt you that America supposedly failed two weeks before democratic elections in Iraq?
[And I’m not the first to say it.]
Leftist desire to see others “gang up” on the corporate boys in business suits.
Tendency to believe that, if the mob gets uppity, the mob must be right. Except the “mob” kept getting beat back in the Cold War.
Those who believe that the Democrats can win much in 2006 don’t remember the Cold War elections of 1980, 1984 and 1988 elections. People like John Kerry and Ted Kennedy huffed and they puffed and did everything they could to convince Americans not to “upset” the Soviet Union and make us unloved by the world’s socialists…but the Democrats only strengthened the perception among the public that they could not be trusted with national security.
They can try to say Bush was wrong in Iraq, but they will only intensify the image that they would do NOTHING.
[America has failed the civilized world it seems,]
It only seems so if you don’t read StrategyPage.com every day like a good source of iron and calcium: real news and concepts that could help you understand what is going on in Iraq.
And remember: the Iraq War was about giving the Shiite Muslims power enough to handle the Sunni Muslims all over the Middle East on their own terms, not ours.
These twelve items read in part like a list of straw man arguments put up by a war-blogger.
The items are too specific and easy to fight. Form a right wing point of view they are like bare message sticks, each saying one thing, rather than each openly saying one thing or several things while implying something else far more damaging, which is the way that anti-war arguments typically are expressed. When assumptions are built into these items, they are pro-war ones that (picking a label that might be used in self-description) people who want peace rather than more war in Iraq may not accept.
1. The war is unwinnable, because the insurgency is too powerful politically and militarily to be defeated within the time material resources and political will allow for the U.S. presence.
This is set up as two rhinos butting heads, and it is set up for a pro-war fanatic, exactly as in Vietnam, to say that America is the bigger rhino.
But elusive foes ran rings around the American rhino in Vietnam, and they are doing the same in Iraq. America’s primitive, bullying assumption that as the most powerful country it must get its way has failed again and again against modern non-trinitarian warfare. As in Vietnam, as in Somalia, as in almost every other case since 1945, the brute force hegemonistic approach is easily outwitted by weak but flexible opponents, supported by a culture that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their cabal (gotta get the implication of a Jew-neocon conspiracy in there) do not understand. The Bush administration is still on the wrong side of history, and America needs to get back on the right side of history.
That’s more like how a peace argument might go, based on well credentialled theorists of war, reframing the fight to make the Bush administration and the opponent look bad (and stupid), and inviting the opponent not to deliver a stock patriotic speech on “the power of America” but to argue that George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and their neocon backers have a deeply sensitive and nuanced understanding of all the relevant cultures.
You can’t argue that (the deep cultural insight of George W. Bush and his cabal) without inviting the audience to laugh at you, and if you concede the point (perhaps tacitly) then the foundation stone is laid for the argument about a stupid, insensitive, over-muscled America inevitably going down to defeat against opponents who are weaker than it but part of a historic shift that the Bush administration does not understand, and who are motivated by (add grievance and anti-American talking points here).
Moreover argument number one sets up a race with America defeating the resistance in Iraq, but perhaps not quickly enough as domestic (American) political will runs out. That is approximately how the right sees the fight (with the Left as the bad guys running the domestic, anti-victory leg of the race, and with “terrorists” not “the resistance”), but it is not the peace argument, which is that Iraq is a quagmire. In a quagmire it’s not the case that you are winning the war but perhaps not fast enough, rather the longer you flounder around in the quicksand the worse things are going to get – so it’s best to get out now!
Why does this list of a dozen top arguments not mention torture and violations of human rights, without which no extensive peace-oriented discussion of the so-called war on terror and the bloody occupation of Iraq is complete? You may not want to talk about torture, but peace advocates certainly do.
David,
You are attempting to move the goalposts at best. A.L. was asking for the arguments against the war in Iraq. “Torture” may be a policy debate but is not an argument against the war in Iraq.
The shorter, clearer version…
In What Are The Major Arguments Against The War In Iraq?, in post #1, Joe Katzman said: ” Given that these are a priori positions, debating them won’t make them go away. At best, it may clarify counter-arguments for those already inclined to make them.” I agreed, but thought that clarifying counter-arguments for those already inclined to make them was worthwhile.
I think Why Not Iraq is making a start in that direction, but it’s a mediocre start because the anti-war points are:
1. Bare bones stripped of the rhetorical muscle that makes them effective.
2. Not the ones that are most often used (as far as I can see) and most damaging.
3. Reframed within pro-war assumptions, making them easy to beat but irrelevant.
r: “David,
You are attempting to move the goalposts at best. A.L. was asking for the arguments against the war in Iraq. “Torture” may be a policy debate but is not an argument against the war in Iraq.”
And at worst? If you think it, say it. What do you mean?
I agree with Armed Liberal’s point: “I think this is a critical and timely effort because – largely – I feel a sentiment solidifying in the discussions I overhear; I see it in the news media. It is the presumption of defeat, of surrender, of hopelessness.”
In general, I think we have a start here, an effort – which is good – but I think that countering the points on the list of twelve would give one false confidence in being able to counter the real anti-war “quagmire” arguments, which are different, more emotive, tricky and effective than the list, and packaged within extremely dispiriting anti-war assumptions rather than pro-war assumptions as in point number one.
To torture…
Do peace advocates know that torture and Iraq are two separate debates, not to be mixed?
If in practice, the war in Iraq is argued without any mention of torture then fine. If in practice torture is part of the debate on Iraq, then clarifying counter-arguments for those already inclined to make them involves recognising that emotive argument, sorting out what makes it effective, and developing a counter or counters to it.
I agree somewhat with David’s point in #18 and against #19 that this is an attempt to move some imagined “goalposts”.
Even AL has noted that this list is provisional, having been constructed (pretty quickly, I might add approvingly) from a distillation of the majority of points from the parent thread a few days ago.
David, I would think that your point about torture could be encompassed within item 2 regarding the lack of “coherent plan” for the occupation/war. I would think that this could or should mean that the conduct of the war has been very bad or worse (Abu Ghraib fits in here, as does renegade contractors, missing billions in reconstruction funds, ham-handed propoganda efforts, and others). However, I do not think it states it plainly enough.
Your same objections to 1 (“two rhinos butting heads”) can be applied to 2. I think AL is mixing together two notions that should be dissociated. What I mean is that these two reasons stand on their own as counterarguments without having to preface the with “The war is unwinnable because…”. You can be against the war solely on the basis that the administration is bungling the execution thereof.
I think this is an imporant issue that needs to be fleshed out more fully. Because if one is against the manner in which the war is being prosecuted/conducted, then it could undermine support even from those who believe in the validity of the “big picture” reasons.
“You forgot an important one – there were other rogue states that could have/should have got the kicking they deserved earlier.”
Cernig the problem with that argument is that it creates a paradox. You cant go after nasty regimes because you have to choose one at a time and that will leave other nasty regimes. Its the equivalent of having a dirty house and not being able to clean the kitchen because the bedroom is also dirty- etc. Nothing ends up getting cleaned.
The bottom line is that consistancy is not the highest of virtues, particularly being constistantly wrong. As was said of the British constitution “she owes her success in practice to her inconsistancies in principle”. Never truer words spoken when it comes to foriegn policy.
Finally, I still think that argument is a red herring. I find it impossible to believe that there any significant number of anti-Iraq crusaders out there who would have advocated invading Pakistan instead. Quite the opposite i would think. Worse, Pakistan has been our most effective ally in the world at taking out Al Qaeda members. This farcical argument that we should have been using our 150,000 troops to ‘get’ Bin Ladin in Pakistan (he’s not in Afghanistan so that argument is even more pointless) is a fantasy. A fantasy that given any serious thought would be a disaster to make the gloomiest of Iraq critics blanch. Sending significant numbers of troops into Pakistan would hands down have been the worst thing we could possibly do.
Cernig the problem with that argument is that it creates a paradox. You cant go after nasty regimes because you have to choose one at a time and that will leave other nasty regimes. Its the equivalent of having a dirty house and not being able to clean the kitchen because the bedroom is also dirty- etc. Nothing ends up getting cleaned.
Mark Styen has said that the strength of the Arab armies combined made Belgium look butch. Remember the six days war?
Traditional Arab military forces are pathetically weak and they know it. That’s why they use the combination of terrorist paramilitaries and diplomacy to fight their wars. When we went into Iraq, we should have known that they would lose the war within days, but that they would fight through Iranian, Ba’thist and Saudi-funded “insurgents”. That’s how the Arab/Muslims have been fighting in Israel. It’s how they fight their wars.
If we were fighting a war against terrorism, we would have anticipated this strategy and we would have treated the middle east as a hornets nest. We wouldn’t poke at it, we’d just remove the whole mess at once. It’s a small, weak dirty house, and we could have cleaned it. But, since we’re still following Jimmy Carter’s strategy of using Islamists to scare the commies, we’re not really fighting terrorism, so that wasn’t the purpose of this war.
The war in Iraq was originally fought to preserve the status quo in the Middle East, by removing Saddam and giving control of the area to our “moderate allies” in Saudi Arabia. The fact that our moderate Saudi allies are flaming radicals who still support terrorism, the overthrow of nations and the establishment of the caliphate worldwide, and the fact that they are currently sending suicide bombers across the border has not changed our policy.
Our government believes that stablitity in the Middle East guarantees stability around the world. In contrast, 95 percent of Americans, Republicans, Democrats, Moderates, and everyone in between believes that our dependence on oil from the Middle East is a dangerous thing. Many conservative and moderate experts have said that the oil supply in the Middle East has peaked or will peak soon.
Both parties would be wise to give this problem their highest priority, but no one ever said that our government was wise.
Michael Ware, the journalist has a sobbering view from Iraq and the guerilla war against the Occupiers. The Occupiers’ enemy is elusive and abstract, he maintains, and *the fight in Ramadi is fierce*.
Tom Viklander, the Bene Gesserit feel you would be well advised to read former Winds blogger Bill Roggio’s eyewitness account of the fighting in Ramadi.
We feel you have been deceived by enemy propaganda.
😉
your thinking
and
logic are flawed.
just like your so called facts.
illegal war, sadaam,more terrorists,etc.
majority posting here are a pathetic waste of human DNA.
and don’t keep deluding yourself.
it’s not healthy.
“The war in Iraq was originally fought to preserve the status quo in the Middle East, by removing Saddam and giving control of the area to our “moderate allies” in Saudi Arabia.”
Which war? The 91 war I might agree. This war, no way. Democratizing Iraq has been a stated goal since the planning began.
The false dichotomy here is silly, and continuing to argue in this way is fatuous. I don’t have to make any such suggestion. I just have to say the truth: Not one single Iraqi Sunni was involved in the 9/11 plot (with all due notice of Joe Katzman’s touching faith in the discredited Protocols of the Elders of Prague) and there is no evidence of any Iraqi terror plot against the United States.
ROFL. The enemy is sexually depraved. Not the first time that meme has spewed out of Germany!
Oh, thank god! The Tet Offensive just about lost the Vietnam War for the Communists. If FOUR Tet Offensives just happened, that must mean the terrorists are shattered.
Here’s hoping!
Which war? The 91 war I might agree. This war, no way. Democratizing Iraq has been a stated goal since the planning began.
From “Pump Dreams: Is energy independence an impossible goal?” published in the New Yorker and the Energy Bulletin
In Cheney’s worldview, America’s best friends in the Middle East are the Saudis who paid for 9/11. They’re about as far from a democracy as it gets.
According to Robert Ebel, a veteran oil-industry executive who once worked for the C.I.A.:
Our government (Republicans and Democrats) have based our foreign policy in the Middle East on our ‘friendship’ with Saudi Arabia. Former CIA agents are so subservient, so pathetic, they’re afraid to discuss efforts to reduce our oil dependence for fear of offending the all-powerful Sauds; Despite the fact that Saudi Arabia’s army could be beaten by the Dutch and 95% of the American public knows that we’re too dependent on foreign oil. If we want to establish democracy in the Middle East, why do we give so much power to a theofascist regime?
There are a few Democrats and a few Republicans who disagree with this policy, but for the most part, Democrats crtiticize the Right for not being obsequious enough to the Islamists. As far as I know, Rudy Giuliani is the only human being alive who has ever turned down Saudi bribes.
The goal of the Islamists and their terrorist paramilitaries is to establish governments based on apartheid Sharia law. Our government is happy to let Afghanistan live under Shariah, and they also support Sistani, an Islamist in favor of Sharia. The government’s tolerance of the Sharia regimes in Iran and Saudi Arabia, and its tolerance of Sharia is proof that we’re not fighting a war against terrorism. I don’t know what we’re supposed to be fighting, maybe the Chinese?
The terrorists are fueled by oil money. If people want to fight terrorism, we can fight it through economic means. We can’t rely on any government to fight it, because oil supplies and stability are their first priority.
-Our Iraq policy certainly did nothing to make the Saudis happy. It unquestionably opened up the Saud regime to pressure from the Islamicists in their midst.
-If Bush was engaged in a realpolitik attempt to control the oil supplies, he would have cut a deal with Saddam and made him our creature and saved the war (the war which most agreed had a dangerous prospect of seeing Iraqs oil field burned anyway.
-You cant have it both ways. Either Bush was ruled by the scary neo-cons with their crazy dreams of remaking the middle east in Thomas Jeffersons image, or Bush was ruled by the scary realists as you imagine. Or just maybe he took advise from both camps and came to a rational decision of his own.
-A democratic Iraq is a far greater threat to the House of Saud than Hussein ever was.
mary: my take on that Cheney statement is a little different. Several months before the invasion, the U.S. needed support from the Gulf States to launch an invasion if it became necessary. That calls for diplomacy and hand-holding. Several weeks before the invasion, and after the support had been obtained, public pronouncements on democratizing Iraq became much more acute.
Our Iraq policy certainly did nothing to make the Saudis happy. It unquestionably opened up the Saud regime to pressure from the Islamicists in their midst.
Saudi Arabia is ruled by the same theofascist laws that governed the Taliban. In some ways, the Taliban were more liberal than the Saudi regime. The Saudi government and the Saudi people are still spending millions of dollars to fund terrorism. The Saudis are the Islamicists in their midst, and we call them allies.
If Bush was engaged in a realpolitik attempt to control the oil supplies
According to Cheney, the realpolitik attempt was to bring stability to the Middle East. They believed that Saddam, with his potential ability to create WMDs, was a threat to the area. Given the information at hand, he wasn’t wrong about that, but the subsequent efforts to give the ‘moderate’ theofascist Saudis more power was misinformed, to say the least.
You cant have it both ways. Either Bush was ruled by the scary neo-cons with their crazy dreams of remaking the middle east in Thomas Jeffersons image, or Bush was ruled by the scary realists as you imagine. Or just maybe he took advise from both camps and came to a rational decision of his own.
Most people think I am a neo-con. I’m not, but I agree with them on all points but one – they think we can install a Marshall Plan in the middle east without first destroying every fascist group in the area, including the governments of Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria. I don’t think that will work, but I hope I’m wrong.
A democratic Iraq is a far greater threat to the House of Saud than Hussein ever was
Since the war ‘ended’, Saudi suicide bombers and al Qaeda fighters have been targeting Iraqis and their economy. As a result, Saudi Arabia’s biggest competitor in the oil business has been crippled, and the terror-supporting Saudis are weathy beyond their wildest dreams. One of the many problems that result from our alliance with fascism.
That calls for diplomacy and hand-holding. Several weeks before the invasion, and after the support had been obtained, public pronouncements on democratizing Iraq became much more acute.
We’re still holding hands with the fascists.
To be honest, I see most of the arguments made against the war as being more objects of a FUD strategy by those against for what ever reason.
“As a result, Saudi Arabia’s biggest competitor in the oil business has been crippled, and the terror-supporting Saudis are weathy beyond their wildest dreams. One of the many problems that result from our alliance with fascism.”
Saudis have always been wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. Whether there is more oil on the market from Iraq today than there was with the sanctions regime in place is debateable. I am fairly certain there is more now, but either way it is hardly a huge swing one way or another. I just dont see how our Iraq policy has benefitted the Saudis in any way, nor how it it _could_ have benefitted them. Hussein never presented a realistic threat to SA from the moment the first American division reached its shores in 91. Whatever Cheney said to get the Gulf States onboard the Iraq invasion shouldnt be taken as gospel. Set aside the words and look at the events on the ground. Its difficult to see how the Sauds have, or could have, benefited from the Iraq invasion. Certainly not decisively enough to argue we did it ‘for’ them. Not anymore than we did it ‘for’ Israel.
I would also note that Jordan and Pakistan are fascists regimes as well. Pakistan has unquestionably done more to rid the Earth of Al Qaeda than any other ally since 911. Should we instead have cut ties to Pakistan and the others in the name of consistancy? That would have been madness, and still is. There are other ways to coax friendly fascists into liberalizing. Look at the history of South Korea, now one of the most vibrant democracies in the world (at least when they arent trying to commit suicide via their northern neighbors).
Mark – “friendly fascists??”
History proves that you can’t talk fascists, friendly or otherwise, into liberalizing.
When those fascists are spending millions in an attempt to destabilize governments worldwide and install apartheid sharia laws, the task is even more daunting.
“History proves that you can’t talk fascists, friendly or otherwise, into liberalizing. ”
History proves nothing of the sort. South Korea and Taiwan were both military dictatorships with bloody histories that turned to democracy and now are beacons to the world. Turkey is another perfect example. Indonesia. India. Its happening today in Morocco.
Russia is far from a model democracy but it didnt take WW3 to turn them away from communist rule. All of Eastern Europe as well. Mexico. Brazil.
The truth of the matter is that the majority of democratic nations did _not_ have democracy pushed on them by outside powers. In a great many cases democracy came from a combination of inside reform movements and outside diplomatic pressure. Often with economic incentives. It always helps when there are neighboring democracies which spur both those things. There is no reason not to believe that given time and succesful blossoming democracies in Iraq and Lebanon that Jordan, Egypt, and even Saudi Arabia can peacefully be coaxed into democratic reform. Its already happening by baby steps in all those places.
There is no reason not to believe that given time and succesful blossoming democracies in Iraq and Lebanon that Jordan, Egypt, and even Saudi Arabia can peacefully be coaxed into democratic reform. Its already happening by baby steps in all those places.
Saudi sharia laws are totalitarian and oppressive when compared to the laws that governed South Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan and Mexico. They’re totalitarian and oppressive when compared to the laws that govern the tribes of the Amazon. These are the laws that their money and influence are currently spreading around the world, to nations like Indonesia, Cambodia and Thailand. The supporters of Sharia are currently in imperalist mode in Southeast Asia and no one is trying to stop them.
Unlike Germany, brutality and totalitarianism are the foundations of Saudi/Islamist culture. Unlike the Russians, the Chinese or the Indonesians or the Turks, this fascist culture is a Wahhabi tradition. It’s all they know. Making a big effort to be really nice to them will not convince them to change. Cajoling hasn’t worked for decades, it won’t work now.
The Republicans, the neo-cons, the democrats, the left and every other form of government around the world is afraid to confront them, despite the fact that, unlike the Soviets or the Nazis, Islamofascists have no real military power. We can train the Iraqi army, but how can we expect them to confront an enemy that we’re afraid to face – that we’re allied with?
Mark,
I agree with your statement below:
“The truth of the matter is that the majority of democratic nations did not have democracy pushed on them by outside powers. In a great many cases democracy came from a combination of inside reform movements and outside diplomatic pressure. Often with economic incentives.”
By contrast, how often has invasion/occupation been successful in creating democracy?
One irony of Iraq is that the “leftist moonbats” did a much better job of predicting the post-invasion guerrilla war and chaos than did the supposedly “hard-headed realists” who supported the war (you can google how accurate pre-war predictions were).
Many war opponents (from both left and right) believe that the resources ($300 B plus) expended in Iraq, could have been much more effectively used to help Afghanistan develop. Instead, Afghanistan languishes in desparate poverty and squalor, with everything outside Kabul under warlord control. Afghanistan is clearly still a “failed state” which does and will continue to harbor anti-US terrorists.
If Iraq also continues as a “failed state” or as a Shi-ite theocracy, those facts on the ground will outweigh any arguements on the web.
Could a combination of sanctions, support for internal opposition, and other containment have caused the fall of Saddam with much less human/financial cost than invasion/occupation, while allowing better long-term prospects for Iraq?
This is the strategy that the US has chosen for most dictatorships, with reasonable but far from universal success (Cuba still an open question, Turkey, Eastern Europe clearly advancing, etc.)
Clearly there was (and is) a universe of choices besides invasion/occupation versus surrender.
“By contrast, how often has invasion/occupation been successful in creating democracy?”
Also, quite often. Germany, Japan, Italy, Panama, Afghanistan, now Iraq.
“One irony of Iraq is that the “leftist moonbats” did a much better job of predicting the post-invasion guerrilla war and chaos than did the supposedly “hard-headed realists” who supported the war (you can google how accurate pre-war predictions were).”
Leftist moonbats managed to predict 100 out of the last 10 disasters, i’ll give you that. I also urge people to google pre-war predictions. When you predict disaster at every turn, in every possible way you can scarcely claim credit when we run into trouble with one of those aspects. The ring of fire in Bahgdad, the million refugees, the chemical weapons poisoning, the oil well fires, the civil war, the attack of Turkey on the Kurds, the attack of Iran and Syria on everyone, terrorists blocking the Persian Gulf, WMDs slipping into American cities in the chaos, famine, pestilence, privation. Yeh, all those predictions are indeed on record.
“Instead, Afghanistan languishes in desparate poverty and squalor, with everything outside Kabul under warlord control. Afghanistan is clearly still a “failed state” which does and will continue to harbor anti-US terrorists.”
Cite sources chief. Afghanistan was the most backwards nation in the world, the fact that they have embraced democracy _are not_ ruled by warlords, and major economic progress has been made, all in 4 short years, is nothing short of astonishing. But i suppose you had an excellent plan to use this 300 billion to turn Afghanistan into the next Belgium. Sure.
“If Iraq also continues as a “failed state” or as a Shi-ite theocracy, those facts on the ground will outweigh any arguements on the web.”
Despite all evidence to the contrary. Which Imam is on the ballot by the way? Look, its pointless having this conversation when _every possible outcome_ will be denigrated by you.
“Clearly there was (and is) a universe of choices besides invasion/occupation versus surrender.”
If so, one would think you and your ilk would stumble across one you’d be willing to champion sooner or later.
Mary, first i think you are vastly overstating the power and numbers the fundamentalists bring to bear in Saudi Arabia. Secondly you are mistaken in equating the House of Saud with them whole cloth. Thirdly you are giving Islamofascism an awful big scare factor by judging it more insideous than the Nazis or Communist zeitgeist.
Finally i’d like to here precisely what you intend. Cutting off the Saudis would simply ensure the people you fear seizing control and whatever influence we currently have disapearing. Invasion? Nuke em? Do you not agree it is a vital interest not to allow Saudi Arabia to become the next Iran?
Mark, would you kindly supply criteria for a country to be a democracy in as neutral terms as possible? I think that if Afghanistan and Iraq qualify, we will find a surpringly long list (e.g., Zimbabwe) of democracies.
Here’s one, which isn’t put this way, but is implied by lots of others and is worth talking about:
_It’s better to close the barn door after the horse blows up._
The argument goes: Consider Afghanistan. Had Clinton invaded after the cole bombing, rather than merely use missile strikes, everything negative coming out of Iraq right now would have been the case with Afghanistan. It’s only because of 9/11 that we could have invaded Afghanistan, without looking imperialist, or at least reckless. The one advantage of being willing to absorb a significant attack is it settles all questions of propriety and justification of the response.
Had the United States, rather than invading Iraq, feignted retreat (calling off the no-fly zones, conceeding to pressure to drop the embargo, etc.), Hussein (as we know now from the Dulfur report) would ofcourse re-start production of mustard gas, bio-weapons, and ultimatly nuclear arms. But he also would have immediatly tried to re-assert control of Kurdistan. A second bloody Anlfal campaign, even standing alone, could have been enough to settle any question of whether forced regeim change was justified. The war would have been about defending poor oppressed Kurds and stoping a madman once and for all, rather than a dispute over the hypothetical threat of non-existent weapons.
Of course it would mean the loss of more lives than the war has already cost many times over, but that’s the advantage of closing the barn door instead.
Look, this argument is only academic at this point, but it’s important for figuring out how to run the next war, so I’ll put in my 2 cents.
As a liberal who beleives in world democracy, Iraq posed a conundrum for me: If we are at risk for devastation by nuclear attack, and we can sprout a new democracy, this should be a good deal right?
What made me most tentative was the pollitiking of the process: the idea that we were in grave danger and it had to be handled immediately, the intelligence (or appearance of intelligence) was used to shunt dissent. The nuclear inspectors could not be given the time they asked for, because the ‘smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud’. Military leaders who politely dissented from Rumsfeld’s Iraq plans were dismissed. And this whole issue was turned into the ongoing pollitical race of ‘your for us or against us’. I still feel like the Bush administration bleugeoened the nation with a wealth of bad, inaccurate, or inappropriate intelligence to resist debate on the issue. And even if IRaq had been necessary, I feel like the pollitization of this war was the largest mistake.
So you got the war, and for a while it seemed like I was wrong, and the Bush administration deserved more credit than I gave it, I was very close to giving up liberal (big L) ties all together and going more middle ground (I’ve done some of that anyway). But then it became clear that the whole thing was in trouble: Massive rioting and looting in the streets, and the military unable to stop it. Instead of having linguists on the ground, the military had difficulty seperating anti-Saddam groups and pro-Saddam groups, often arresting anti-Saddam religous leaders who had already taken care of baathist leaders.
I had predicted urban fighting that would be difficult for American forces to deal with, but I did not expect ‘the Insurgency’. American forces, again, not having the cultural or linguistic background to deal with these groups, lashed out with house-to-house searches and harsh interrogation methods. Wether or not it created better information, it also created a sense of outrage among the Iraqi public. While I don’t like the idea of torture, against Al-Quida, I won’t protest too much. But it’s known now that innocents were mixed up in the process; as well as women and children. For every one that dissapeared, we lost another Iraqi who was willing to fight with us. And that’s how we’ve grown terrorism.
And we also know now that there are no WMD’s (go ahead: prove the Libya program belonged to Iraq). Give Bush the hat trick. If we had taken our time, prepared a little better, gone in with ‘the army we need and not the army we have’, if we had a solid military plan this whole thing might have worked better. Maybe, but the insurgency has also been a mix of cultural problems that we did not appear to be ready for.
So here’s what I think what we have before we go:
1)better than a ‘why not’ we need a solid public ‘why’… not changing rationale’s in the public the last few months, not restricing intel to a few at the top. There needs to be a solid debate.
2) In addition to having a ‘why’, we need to have a ‘how’ and a ‘possible results’ debate. ‘We will be greeted as liberators’ is not good enough. Congress needs to weigh the issue, and come up with a formal declaration of war, stating ‘why’, ‘how’ and strategy so that there is no public confusion about the goals of the war. We also need to start linguistic and cultural trainging earlier; every soldier in Iraq needs at least a basic understanding or arabic (or chinese etc, etc, etc)
3)Wether or not we want to be an empire, we are going to be viewed that way anyway, so we might as well do what good empires do. The second you invade a nation you start bringing in the best you have to offer. Bring in police, bring in engineers, bring in construction crews, bring in as many vollunteer medical staff as you can get. Bring in humanitarian groups who know how to deal with problems as remote villages are cut off. Get ‘help’ to those who need it immediately, because in the end, the only thing that matters is wether they will work with us or against us.
To go to the ‘hisorical quagmire’ (3) this is what killed us in ‘nam. Sure, we could have beaten the vietcong but it didn’t matter. Because the ‘pro-american’ goverment that would have been left behind was so corrupt, so vile, so uncaring about it’s own people that the population became indifferent to their own freedom. In addition, our carpet-bombing and massacre’s in ‘pinkville’s’ did not make us friends of the vietnamese. Even though the vietcong were weakened, no one else would bother to fight.
In the end, Iraq will no longer be ‘our war’. We can only hold the place until the Iraqi goverment is ready to take over. The next question is: What do we do if they decide they can’t (or won’t) take over? What do we do if they decidee that civil war is the best way to deal with their problems?
“Mark, would you kindly supply criteria for a country to be a democracy in as neutral terms as possible? I think that if Afghanistan and Iraq qualify, we will find a surpringly long list (e.g., Zimbabwe) of democracies.”
Thats a fair question and I expect it would take a lot more words than I would wish to do it justice. I think most important is that democracy is a process, not an event. Obviously Iraq and Afghanistan are not model democracies by a Western yardstick, but equally obviously they certainly are worlds better than their contemporaries. That being said, self-determination is ultimately the heart of the matter:
A nation governed by the rule of law, subject to the will of the people via periodic elections, respectful of minority rights, and open to criticism and grevience from all lawful citizens.
Im certainly open to criticism/addendum to that, but i think Iraq and Afghanistan have begun to qualify, if only through virtue of their momentum being positive as opposed to nations like Mexico and Russia that grow more distant by the day.
re defining “democracy”
If we are going to be strictly definitional, then “democracy” may not be the correct term. We are supporting the creation of a *constitutional* democracy in Iraq. And the word “constitutional” might be more important than the word “democracy.” Autocrats like Saddam, Putin, and Chavez (despite many differences) can point to “democratic” votes to suggest that they are democratically elected, but each of these individuals felt entitled to change the “rules” (the constitution) to maintain power. Allawi’s voluntary withdrawal from power is encouraging. Only when the rules are more important than the sovereign, will Iraq be free.
“If so, one would think you and your ilk would stumble across one you’d be willing to champion sooner or later.”
It is hard for me to speak for the rest of my “ilk”, but my comment above advocated the choice of serious investment and commitment to bringing Afghanistan out of the failed state category.
“Cite sources chief.”
“From Global Security”:http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/afghanistan/intro.htm
“The authority of Karzai’s administration does not extend far beyond Kabul, and warlords remain in firm control of many parts of the country, while Taliban insurgents move to fill the power vacuum in contested areas. ”
If this conversation is about reasons to oppose or support the Iraq invasion, then possible outcomes seem very pertinent. Agreed that opponents predicted 100 of the last 10 disasters, but what is Cheney’s batting average? (last throes, welcomed as liberators, etc.) The Bush team seems so consistently divorced from reality that only true believers give any credence to their predictions (only their financial predictions are worse than their foreign policy predictions). Certainly better outcomes than theocracy or chaos are possible in Iraq, but their long-term success will depend on Iraqis, not US soldiers and bureaucrats.
We are all well aware of both failed and successful invasion/occupations but their extraordinary human and financial costs, combined with the potential to incite rather than reduce long-term conflict make it very likely that Iraq will be the last such adventure for a while.
On the subject of incitement
“The Iraq War: Planting the Seeds of Al-Qaida’s Second Generation
By Fawaz A. Gerges
The American-led invasion and occupation of Iraq has provided al-Qaida with a new lease on life, a second generation of recruits and fighters, and a powerful outlet to expand its ideological outreach activities to Muslims worldwide. Statements by al-Qaida top chiefs, including bin Laden, Zawahiri, Zarqawi, and Seif al-Adl, portray the unfolding confrontation in Iraq as a “golden and unique opportunity” for the global jihad movement to engage and defeat the United States and spread the conflict into neighboring Arab states in Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestine-Israeli theater. The global war is not going well for bin Laden, and Iraq enabled him to convince his jihadist followers that al-Qaida is still alive and kicking despite suffering crippling operational setbacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and elsewhere.
The United States and the international community could have found intelligent means to nourish and support the internal forces that were opposed to militant ideologies like the bin Laden network. The way to go was not to declare a worldwide war against an unconventional, paramilitary foe with a tiny or no social base of support and try to settle scores with old regional dictators. That is exactly what bin Laden and his senior associates had hoped the United States would do—lash out militarily against the ummah. As Seif al-Adal, al-Qaida’s overall military commander recently put it, “The Americans took the bait and fell into our trap.”
Fawaz A. Gerges holds the Christian A. Johnson Chair in International Affairs and Middle Eastern Studies at Sarah Lawrence College and is a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org). He is the author of America and Political Islam: Clash of Interests or Clash of Cultures? (Cambridge, 1999), The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global (Cambridge, 2005) and The Journey of the Jihadis: A Biography of a State of Mind (Harcourt Press, 2006).
See new FPIF policy report online at:
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/2906 “
Mary, first i think you are vastly overstating the power and numbers the fundamentalists bring to bear in Saudi Arabia. Secondly you are mistaken in equating the House of Saud with them whole cloth. Thirdly you are giving Islamofascism an awful big scare factor by judging it more insideous than the Nazis or Communist zeitgeist.
I’ve been blathering about this stuff for a while, here, here and here. I’ve thought that we should invade terror-supporting states, give Mecca back to the Hashemites and give control of the world’s oil supply back to the world since Dec. 2001.
Or, if that seems too extreme, we should regard oil independence as a form of civil defense, and put all of our efforts into using any and every energy source but oil. Let the newly impoverished terror-supporters return to the desert and eat sand. If we were able to do that, groups like the Kurds, the Iraqis and the Lebanese, who have skills that go beyond living off the oil economy, would benefit.
I don’t believe that you can fight terrorists by allying with terrorists, but that concept defies all current political wisdom. People don’t like to change, and our alliance with our enemies is a long established tradition. Given that the oil economy is not benefitting us politically and given that our suppliers in the Middle East may be running out of oil, it would be wise to change things.
These have been a couple of interesting threads, and it is good to see you consider the “other side”.
I will have to agree at this point it is an academic, but I have been as guilty as anyone in re-arguing this argument again and again.
While here at WOC, I’ve always been the staunch anti-Iraq, at other sides (specifically ObWi) I’ve put up at least two posts listing reasons why to invade iraq. “Here is one”:http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2004/09/did_1000_troops.html#comment-2198184. Read down for the next entry.
Watch JC almost come out FOR the Iraq war!! Yes, hell has frozen over, or at least gotten a bit nippy…
I would start by taking issue with the title of the post. “Why not Iraq?” As was mentioned earlier in the thread, the question should be “Why Invade Iraq?”
In this case, the reasons given have all, to a certain extent, been false, or at least hollow.
Assuming civil war doesn’t break out in Iraq (God willing), then – in the extreme long term – Iraq will be in a better situation, as a Shiite-lite government, with simmering tension in Baghdad and Sunni areas, for the next 10 years.
If in 10 years, this leads to a country that is – nominally – democratic, this is really the best that can be hoped for at this point.
Is that a good? Sure if it happens that way. There’s a good chance it won’t happen, however.
Back to the points – and a question. What does “win” mean here? right after the elections, Bush may declare that we have won, and take the troops home. So what’s the defintion of win?
I will assume “win” means that peace will eventually reign in Iraq, as leaving a war-torn country for another 10 years is not winning to me.
the strongest for me are 1 (with a redefinition), 3, 4, maybe 8, 11, 12.
1 – the war is unwinnable because there are too many centrifugal forces pulling the country apart and contributing to the internecine conflict in Iraq, and one such force that contributes to violence is the U.S, by way of stirring up nationalist sentiments.
3. Despite what Dan Darling and others say, the connection between Saddam and the Al-Queda terrorists that pulled off 9-11 was minimal. Abu Nidal doesnt’ get to count, nor every other small-timer with a grudge against the U.S. who may hve passed through Iraq in the last ten years. Seven steps of Kevin Bacon probably puts every official who ever visited anywhere in the U.S. two or three steps away from Osama Bin Laden.
4. This is pretty solid, at this point, especially regarding some of the recent reporting, and regarding some of the most recent results of fighters in Iraq, trained in fighting in Iraq, starting to show up in Europe. it’s quite the training ground for incipient fighters.
8. From what we knew, containment was working on a military and arms level, but there were definitely issues with the U.N., food for oil, etc, starvation, etc. So that is why this is a maybe.
11. Oh yeah. No doubt about it.
12. Just read The Assassin’s Gate, this is another beyond the doubt. (Also A.L, regarding this point, many times – perhaps not all – you retreat to an airy “mistakes happen, you can’t expect perfection, etc, etc – but the lack of preparation in this instance goes so far out of the bounds of “mistakes happen”, that I hope you can drop that particular defense.)
I was sympathetic to the idea that we should engage in this conflict, but a lot of it rested upon certain criteria,
1) WMD and alleged al Qaeda ties with Iraq. (GWOT criteria)
2) Saddam was a bad guy who starved and oppressed many of his people
3) We would have a solid plan to “win the peace” and not create a more volatile situation than there was when we started. Nothing is more important in any Wilsonian democratization effort.
Unfortunately, number 1 and number 3 don’t seem to have materialized. Therefore, the situation seems to me to be less of a “reason against the war” than it is a sense of disappointment, resentment, and condemnation of the administration for not being smart enough to get the facts right about number 1, and not being competent enough to better execute number 3. All this talk about pulling out,etc, seems to be a different matter entirely (but a worthwhile and more pressing issue to discuss).
I’m happy to accept this as a good faith fair effort at listing the heads of the anti-war case; at the same time, probably no individual war opponent would accept it (or a selection from it) as an adequate summary of his position. That’s just the way it goes; tot homines, quot sententiae.
Frex:
The list’s a bit light on the potential downsides of the civil conflicts ongoing in Iraq, e.g., a failed and broken state some sections of which provide safe haven for international terrorists; a long term civil conflict between Shiites and Sunnis dragging Iraq’s Shiite majority into conflict with its Sunni Arab neighbours.
A couple of more general comments:
Actually, Robert, I’m trying to do two things – first to put together a collection of counterarguments to these, and second, to persuade antiwar commenter Chris to mirror this effort with pro-war arguments.
Give me a day or two…
A.L.
By the way, moonbats aside, this is an absolutely terrific idea, A.L. I’ve never been more ambivalent about a policy issue before, and this kind of approach seems, at least intuitively, to provide cut-to-the-chase arguments about the matter. It’s the way it oughta be, dangit. Thanks for putting it together.
The one thing I would caution you about, and it has been adumbrated by other posters, is that both sides must resist the temptation to beat up on the straw man. That is the stuff of AM talk radio.