Let’s hope not.
The Iraq War turns four tomorrow. As John Quiggin says, the dimensions of the horror caused leave many stuck for words.
While a diminishing contingent will continue to seek to justify this unjust and massively destructive conflict using the language of abstraction, the human stories speak for themselves.
Read George Packer in The New Yorker who writes of the betrayal of Iraqis by Americans, and over at Obsidian Wings looks at the impact of the war on one vet, a suicide.
Let’s let hilzoy have the last word:
Happy Birthday, war. I cannot imagine what could come of you now that would begin to justify the agony you have inflicted on so many innocent people, Americans and Iraqis alike.
It’s probably too much to hope that you would dispel some tiny part of the arrogance, irresponsibility, and ignorance that gave rise to you.
May the thought of Jeffrey Lucey, and all the others like him, American and Iraqi (and British, and all those whose lives have been wrecked) haunt Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Feith, et al as long as they live.
Majikthise has an article on another military suicide: Col. Ted Westhusing, a military ethicist who’d written extensively on the importance of military honour, killed himself a month before he was due to finish his tour of duty in Iraq in 2005. His full suicide note has just been published, which reads in part:
The shame and disgust felt by both men over what they saw and faciliated in Iraq seems to have pushed them to suicide.
Majikthis concludes her post on Westhusing with:
Kim:
I would rather say Happy Birthday to Lavatus Prodeo!!!
The whole thing was preventable at every step of the way.
At the end of the First World War – by setting up an independent Kurdistan under Anglo-French tutelage; a Shia kingdom under British military protection; a Syrian Araby from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf “guided” by Allied business interests. Instead, a bunch of drunken ignorant geriatrics drew pretty lines on maps ….. and so did much to reduce population and prosperity for generations to come.
When Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was at war with Iran ….. and follish Amerucans were too timid to drive a hard bargain with their client/ally.
And then, just as the victorious Coalition forces were ready to roll straight into Baghdad and send Saddam Hussein on a very long overseas holiday …. US Pres,George Bush, Senior, stopped the victory happeneing and so caused the present conflagration.
Yes, saw that, tigtog, but I thought one suicide was enough for one post.
An interesting thing about Iraq, Howard, Obama, and Al Qaeda:
Howard’s outburst against the Democrat candidate Barak Obama (back in early Feb) was not more than 2 days after the new Al Qaeda head man in Iraq gave an “internet speech” praising the Democrat win in the mid-term November elections. Here is Abu Omar al-Baghdadi giving some ammo for little Johnnie to step up and attack the Democratic Mr Obama:
So two days after this little speech Howard is saying:
But al-Baghdadi’s rant got little Australian coverage so Howard looked a bit silly, and his comments seemed out of the blue and over the top.
But.
But put it into the context of the Abu Omar al-Baghdadi speech, and of course Howard’s comments do make some kind of sense. And I hope the CIA still pays Mr al-Baghdadi. Its not his fault the western media and their leaders can’t get their act together. He did his job. LOL
You may be right, Kim. I just find the waste of honourable service members and the ruin of young lives, military and civilian, so infuriating.
Me too, tigtog, but I got rather depressed as well as infuriated.
The Iraq war will go down in histroy as one of those stupid “why the f*ck did they buy into that?” conflicts.
A bit like the Crimean War, the First World War or Vietnam.
One of those pontless pissing contests that leaves nothing but poetry and death in its wake.
What a waste.
Brendon Says:
Dolly already admitted his Faux News habit:
Given what Howard said on the 7:30 report tonight, it’s obvious he gets his new from similar bullshit sources.
Moderation required, please.
I am in a parallel universe, I know this is Larvatus Prodeo, populated by some rather unhinged zealotic viewpoints, but someone is referring to what they consider “bullsheet” sources, then posts a reference to Daily Kos!
OMG! This IS satire?
I know that it’s difficult for right wing bloggers to understand how this blogging thing works, but the Kos page gives links to the actual poll data. You wanna refute that, then go ahead.
What is your problem, Steve? Daily Kos is a US website that has about 600,000 daily visits, according to its site stats. It’s a an middle of the road Democrat supporting blog site. And Democrats may possibly win the next presidential election in the US.
Do you have a website? May I come over and comment on it? What’s the traffic like? Does it espouse mainstream views, or eccentric ones peculiar to yourself?
Bloggers who come here to LP to soapbox their opinions are mostly of the progressive persuasion and would be inclined to agree with much that is said on Kos.
So why are you carrying on like some sort of tart?
People have suicided over the shame and disgust of being in debt so deeply they are foreclosed upon.
Morally & ethically in diametric opposition to this viewpoint is that of others who have no qualms about taking dole & assorted handouts for years on end. Indeed, far from being shamed they regard it as a right, indignantly defending their right to be supported whilst remaining idle.
Who is right? Whose ethics are the most moral?
It is possible that soldiers who suicide have deeper problems than a perception that the honour of their uniform has been tarnished. For a start they don’t understand even the value of their own life, thus it is probably asking a bit much to expect them to understand the value of their service, or the value of their mission.
Even the guy who helped pull down the Saddam statue now thinks Bush is a worse dictator than Saddam.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/us-regime-worse-than-saddam-statue-slayer-says/2007/03/19/1174152970789.html
That’s what post-traumatic stress disorder does to people.
Steve at the pub
Wait till they get really steamed and start linking Counterpunch!
I’m not condoning war of any kind, it’s wretched and destructive, but we don’t have to look far to understand that there are forces in play who want war and will stop at nothing to initiate and perpetuate war. They don’t care who dies. They don’t care who is displaced, or what damage is done to infrastructure and livelihoods. You don’t need a degree to work out who ‘they’ are, but, it’s not Bush, Blair or Howard.
What this ugly conflict has done, as far as we’re concerned, is to force us to take the risk of actually placing ourselves (or at least our troops) in the frontline of a conflict which has been going on for decades, one which we have ignored or put aside, or merely commented on and watched as thousands of innocent, but unattached (to us) people were butchered, tortured or massively suppressed whilst we got on with our relatively orderly, risk-free Western lifestyle, just as we have or are doing over the Sudanese conflict, or, now, the Zimbabwean struggle, where are being sorely oppressed while, in the case, at least, of Sudan, we decide whether it is ‘genocide’ or not, because if we can say the word ‘genocide’ then we can actually consider, in our diplomatic way, whether to help them out, or to leave them at the mercy of oppressors.
What kind of logic or commitment to help is that? People are dying and being displaced as we sit around and blog our disgust at our involvement in Iraq, but of course the Sudanese and the Zimbaabweans, and the iraqis, etc, on the other side of the world, speak a different language, and have a different cultural background, so why should we get involved? We have the machinery to help, but do we want to take the risk of helping them out of their mess?
Well now, we don’t like being involved in someone else’s mess, do we, specially if we have to get our hands dirty, or put our lives on the line? We don’t like lives on our side being put at risk, the same risks that innocent, hapless bystanders face every day in some of these places. We don’t like being in the frontline of what some of us consider someone else’s problem. We think that the almighty sanctions card will solve the problem for Iraqis and Afghanis, which of course, if we were truthful, we know only added to the plight of the helpless.
No, we needed to be involved in this conflict. We needed to be hands on, if only to shake us into some kind of sobriety about what they are going through. It wasn’t started by Bush, or Blair, or Howard. It was already in motion long before any of these men came into power. We, under the cover of the UN, sat back and, for years, allowed the suppressed be buried under the weight of powermongers like Saddam, and calmly said, “Not our war, not our conflict! Let them deal with it!” We hid under the sanctions blanket and let the innocent die.
War is disgusting, but how can we, how could we, who possess such a high degree of wealth, strength and power, militarily and politically, sit back and allow fellow human beings be crushed by despots, and claim to have any kind of conscience?
So the vets get post-traumatic stress disorder and the Iraqis get induced Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy? Lovely.
Hmm, Facelift, the first comment following yours backs up your case.
So when are you signing up for the war against Burma?
And if “we” have so much “strength and power” why are “we” not committing more of it to Iraq? Why are “we” allowing this agony to continue?
The essence of Bush’s Iraq fiasco is that “we” are implicated but not really involved.
This fake international war in Iraq is simply an artefact of the Right’s filthy tactics in the much more important domestic culture war.
But fatally for the Right, the people have woken up.
Oh, happy day!
“People have suicided over the shame and disgust of being in debt so deeply they are foreclosed upon.”
Others, Steve, who identify their human worth as something more than their net worth, “foreclosed upon” by Shock & Awe, dust themselves off and get on with life, some even becoming economic refugees.
Gutless queue-jumpers! Right, Steve?
Care to address that “Morally & ethically”, soldier?
Easy when you think about the limitations of western power.
1. The US military is having a hard time of it dealing with 23 million Iraqis. How do you think they are going to go liberating well over 1 billion Chinese. Our military power aint that great.
2. The military can only get you so far. They can knock down an old system but they can’t set up a new one. That relies of our political power, which, once we are occupying a foreign land becomes pretty miniscule. We should have learned this from Vietnam, but apparently we didn’t. Western countries now find the idea of some sort of colonial system onerous, so they have to cede power to the local authorities who then tend to have a pretty free hand. I mean the US couldn’t even get Maliki to stall an execution for a while.
3. Then there is the whole matter of unintended consequences. When you go around reconstructing totally foreign countries, or regions as the case may be your going to have a hard time of it predicting the consequences. Knocking over a dictatorship in Iraq, for example, could make life easier for the dictatorship next door, and harder for your allies, democratic ones included, in the region.
4. This is assuming your occupier is reasonably competent. In Iraq we got an occupier in the grips of messianic delusions, which pretty much guaranteed lots of nasty unintended consequences. Firing everyone who knows how to run the country in the hope that a functioning state will just spring up is an example. Going in on the cheap troop-wise is another.
5. Finally there is democracy. In the aftermath of the November 2006 mid-term elections it has become clear that the neo-cons are much more comfortable with democracy abroad than democracy at home. Voters will only put up with sacrificing so much blood and treasure over a war that has a minimal direct impact on their national security. If their current leaders wont heed their wishes they will just find some who will.
Chris:
Well put ……. unfortunately, nobody in power in either the United States or in Australia appreciates being confronted with your sort of reality; it disturbs the mugs and causes them to ask awkward questions instead of simply believing what their government tells them.
Chris:
Easier said than done.
They thought they had one in George Bush in 2000 when he said he wasn’t into nation-building.
All the current crop of favorites are more belligerent internationally than GWB was in 2000 when he ran for the first time. Chavez is a thug, Iran needs to be dealt with, China needs to be taken down a peg etc…Clinton, Obama, McCain have all said things, that not so long ago, would be seen as belligerent and inflammatory. Even Pelosi. When push came to shove she folded and is now in the pro-war camp, no matter what she claims.
Face it, Brendon.
The US is never going to elect a hippie to the presidency.
US voters are more or less addicted to verbal bellicosity. That’s the price political candidates pay for getting to run for either of the two major parties.
But most of the time, when elected, the successful candidate is smart enough to know the limitations of military power. Most of the time the US gets by with its arsenal of rhetoric, financial muscle, trade controls, jawboning and backstairs bullying. That’s their stock-in-trade.
Never before has the Oval Office been occupied by a man whose faith in military might has been so complete.
Coincidentally (or not), never before has the Oval Office been occupied by a man who is so ignorant, unintelligent and incurious about the world.
Katz,
Bush is truly unintelligent. You remember when he was clowning around in one speech in 2004 pretending he could find the WMDs?
I don’t remember who said this, it may have been David Ben-Gurion. But he said words to the effect that a leaders duty is to the truth, and his second duty is telling the people the truth. Bush is proof that that is a damn good philosophy.
American voters are dished up what they are dished up. Its hard to say if they are addicted to it. Certainly I am watching the candidates say all the right things to big business, AIPAC, the military amen corner etc. Their policies are vetted by these types of pressure groups who have a good long look at the candidates.
McCain was all the rage in early 2000 with the neocons. But he fell out of favour because he was to much of a maverick. The neocons liked Bush better because he was an idiot with an amoral brains-trust, and that looked good for the neocons to get all their policies through. Thats how it works.
Chris,
Of course, but who said the US should have to undertake the operation alone, when the combined power of the West could have ended this debacle if it could have shown a little more fortitude. Unfortunately vested interests tend to dim the resolve when there’s money to be made circumventing sanctions.
China doesn’t need to be suppressed. It’s discovered the benefits of capitalism with a little old-school communist arm-twisting of the local population to keep it in order. But the war is being won in the boardroom. MacDonalds is on the front line. Maoist communism has had its day and is melting into Western influenced socialism with a dash of wealth-increase on the side for the merchants, and the Chinese have always been good entrepreneurs and artisans anyway, so now they can express themselves on the world’s markets like never before whilst keeping up the militarist look to keep the West at arm’s length.
But Islam*c fundamentalism is a completely different kettle of fish. It is nationalistic without having a particular nation to settle in. It is not afraid of death, for itself ort for its victims. It has no qualms about lying and deception for its own cause. And it is everywhere. It will fight you even if you don’t want to fight. It’s smaller than it looks, but it illuminates itself and produces a grand shadow which scares most of the world to death. it’sloud and organised, and wants you to convert, submit or die.
It has been pushed offshore by the US (their shore), and is concentrated at its focal point in the Middle East. If the West lets go by withdrawing from Iraq prematurley then the danger is that it will break out in places which will render it uncontainable, and there will be more death and destruction than we’re seeing today, and far more people will be affected directly.
When we went unto Islamic turf all we did was shine a more defining light on a problem which was already there, and, as evidenced by 9/11 and the Bali bombings, etc, etc, was already on our doorstep long before George Bush reacted and sent troops to the Middle East. if you think this will end if we pursue a quick exit strategy you’re not as in touch with reality as you think.
Katz Says:
Not so, according to Paul Krugman.
Here’s the 1993 article.
A larger except of the Krugman editorial is available at PKArchive:
(my emphasis added in the final paragraph)
You’re trying to present a false dichotomy, and a stupid one at that.
It’s not moral to commit suicide. It is moral to accept help. It’s obviously immoral to deny help, which is what you want to do.
“when the combined power of the West could have ended this debacle if it could have shown a little more fortitude.”
All united in one common cause to stamp out negative elements hey? That’s what Stalin and Mao used to say. The whole point of a free society is that it should be a motley, disparate and disunited bunch of people – until a real and genuine threat comes along. And even then we don’t always get our act together (see Spike Milligan’s war memoirs for starters).
But free social democratic capitalistic societies keep winning because they can’t be organisationally or ideologically decapitated. Like the internet, everything keeps getting rerouted around or just absorbed into a “life goes on” blob. The idea that some fundamentalist Islamic Caliphate can achieve any kind of geopolitical dominion in the 21st century is even more ludicrous than the concept of cloning the Beatles to bring back the sixties.
“It’s smaller than it looks, but it illuminates itself and produces a grand shadow”
Maybe the grand shadow production is also being vamped up by others who stand to make a motza from a climate of fear? Over a trillion dollars of taxpayer money has been pumped into the whole western military-security establishment in the past five years and what do we have to show it for it? Air travel has got even more unpleasant, terrorism worldwide is still on the rise, a flood of cheap heroin is about to hit us by the end of the year and no one feels at all reassured by their Governments’ statements anymore.
Furthermore, when confronted by the twin terrible monsters of Nazism and rampant Nipponese militaristic nationalism, some old cripple said “we have nothing to fear but fear itself.” And you know what, we won that one so successfully that the krauts and japs are now among the most civilised members of the global community. Not to mention the cold war too.
Your craven hangwringing response to the current climes, I suggest FL, is an embarassing insult to our ancestors who faced down and beat Hitler, Tojo and the Commies – while partying on at the same time. Oh ye of little faith.
“If the West lets go by withdrawing from Iraq prematurley then the danger is that it will break out in places which will render it uncontainable…”
Why? Every major islamic fundamentalist outrage aimed at Westerners has been committed by everyone but people from Iraq and mainly from folks based, sourced and or funded through Pakistan and Saudi Arabia – two US client states. OK, well maybe we may see more new terrorism tactics now – like chlorine gas vehicle bombs (imagine the raw material stockpiles in Orange County) and kitchen built shaped explosives – but where, why and how you think they got operationally tested for a new century?
Stopping small groups of whackos from killing us is a police/intelligence/security matter not a major invasion/crusade operation. To do otherwise is to enter the land of the blind where no one is king ‘cos we’ve all poked eachothers’ eyes out.
On a happy, lighter and another “we will always win in the long run” moment, I’m now listening to ‘Odgen’s Nut Gone Flake’. Still holds up remarkably well – far more so than similar contemporary experiments *cough*Satanic Majesties Request*cough*.
Facelift:
Where there’s money to made?! You couldn’t get a bigger bunch of crooks and bandits than the current Whitehouse occupants and their money-grubbing cronies
Once in Iraq, there was virtually no accountability over how the money was spent. There was also considerable money “off the books,� including as much as $4 billion from illegal oil exports. The CPA and the Iraqi State Oil Marketing Board, which it controlled, made a deliberate decision not to record or “meter� oil exports, an invitation to wholesale fraud and black marketeering.
Thus the country was awash in unaccountable money. British sources report that the CPA contracts that were not handed out to cronies were sold to the highest bidder, with bribes as high as $300,000 being demanded for particularly lucrative reconstruction contracts.”
http://www.amconmag.com/2005/2005_10_24/cover.html
And where does it all end? The big oil companies rake in 70% of the oil profits until they say its all paid for. Neat.
Who decides the profits? Lets see:
Exxon Iraq sell it to Exxon Cayman Islands (They have 7 branches in the Caymans. No joke). Then Exxon Cayman Islands sell it to Exxon America.
Neat.
Maybe thats why Bush made it “illegal” for American oil companies to be prosecuted in Iraq.
Brendon, there were two comments in the spaminator which were very similar. I approved the second, if that’s OK.
Thanks Brian.
Hitler and Tojo were a different kind of enemy, Nabakov, and you know it. We knew where they were and what they were capable of for a start.
Sure we should face them down. That’s my point. But how did we face them down in WW2? We had a world war where all the empirical capitalist good guys (plus, amazingly, Stalin’s anti-capitalist empirical mob) got together and slammed the imperialist enemy for all they were worth, and then the Allies only just pulled through, basically because we got neuclear power first. Militant fundamentalism has a large waiting-on-the-sides we’re-withj-you-religiously force watching to see if they can pull off any major coups, and gather some kind of momentum whihc will stir the presently less militant masses into caliphatic action.Whose to say what the militant fundamentals would do with the neuclear capabilities? Isn’t that what the Iran ‘crisis’ is about?
Containing insurgents gives us a target at least. And yes, each nation neds to take care of it’s own threat when it comes to militant fundamentalism. But Islam*c cell-based fundies are not the only trouble-makers around. Some of them already have a grip on nations.
I’m in no way handwringing, by the way. Actually I’m saying, as you are, that we need to face down the enemy and not appease it on the basis of it won’t stop so let’s just put up with it by stirringly applying sanctions.
And I’m with you in that I think the West will win in the end because true democracy ain’t terrific, but it gives people a voice and enough power to bring change to their own circumstances, but I don’t think it’s responsible for us to stand by and watch obviously evil dictators crush their underlings with threats, violence and force when we have the capabilities to render murderous bullies exiled or hanged. That is cowardice. Were you a kid who tried to stop a fight between a bully and a smaller victim in the school-yard, or one of those who called out ‘fight, fight’ to attract attention to it and gather a watching crowd, and groaned when a prefect or a teacher broke up the fight?
Do you think Mugabe is doing right by his people? Should we act to remove his government? When to a government’s ill-used sovereign rights seriously violate human rights enough for the rest of the world to act? Do you think Kurds are ungrateful for US intervention in Saddam’s affairs? Do you think that the ordinary people of the Sudan would be sad if their obviously genocidal government was seriously militarily pressured into letting them live a normal life again?
Do you think that despotic governments don’t think twice about, at least, the ‘American threat’ before considering the invasion of a weaker neighbour?
Were you a kid who tried to stop a fight between a bully and a smaller victim in the school-yard, or one of those who called out ‘fight, fight’ to attract attention to it and gather a watching crowd, and groaned when a prefect or a teacher broke up the fight?
Actually, I think that is a fairly good summary of the two camps in the pro-war group.
I think the anti-war group are the kids who just stayed at the back and made themselves look small so nobody would bring them into it. To be fair, they were probably trying to think of the best way to bring the situation to a peaceful conclusion, without putting themselves at too much risk.
/analogy_police
“China doesn’t need to be suppressed. It’s discovered the benefits of capitalism with a little old-school communist arm-twisting of the local population to keep it in order.�
Hmm that’s a bit of a climb down Facelift. Is China not a dictatorship? True its not a dictatorship with anything to do with Islamic fundamentalism but neither is Zimbabwe and you seam to be gunning for Mugabe.
You suggested that Islamic fundamentalism has “been pushed offshore by the US (their shore), and is concentrated at its focal point in the Middle East.� I really can’t see how this can work when it comes to a trans-national movement. There havn’t been any attacks on US soil since they invaded Iraq but there have been in plenty of other places. It only takes a few guys to carry out a terrorist attack. Its uncontainable wether we are in Iraq or not.
You havn’t really addressed points 2-5, which I suggest demonstrate that a democratic crusade of the sort you suggest simply isn’t viable.
You peacemongers will just have to get used to the fact that the US will not be leaving Iraq in a hurry regardless of which party wins the presidency in 2008. I am sure you will be very disappointed if the first democratic government in the Arab world finally defeats those trying to destroy it.
Nabakov:
Not ludicrous at all.
In case you haven’t noticed ….. Greater Araby, long the dream of Arab nationalists and restorationists, has morphed into The Caliphate.
No doubt, to achieve this state of affairs liberal, progressive, modernist, secular and educated Arabs have all been terrified into silence by “offers they couldn’t refuse” and those who did continue to strive for a prosperous united respected and powerful Greater Araby were swiftly cut down by the Fundamentalists.
And maybe a backward impoverished and brutal Caliphate would suit the interests of G W Bush’s business supporters too.
A brief, and almost apologetic segment on the SBS news last night showed Kurdish north Iraq progressing wonderfully.
The main antogonists in cities like Baghdad are incursionists and opportunists who are fully committed to removing from memory the US victory over Saddam’s wicked government, won long ago. This is a second wave of war, detached from the first, driven by an invasion by religious fundamentalists from a number of outlets, from as divers cities as Damascus and Birmingham.
The incursionists don’t give a rip for ordinary Iraqis, who, I hope anyway, are smart enough, and becoming empowered enough to eventually see through the self-serving religious, ideologically driven second-wave invasion and push them out, or put them away, as they will the existent criminal element which, with other Iraqis, was imancipated by the US liberation of Iraq, and is using these troubled times as an excuse to push for power under the guise of religious fanaticism.
Meanwhile the Kurds are celebrating freedom for the first time in decades!
Actually the Kurds have had autonomy since the early 1990s.
These attempts to seperate the initial invasion of Iraq from the insurgency is silly. The insurgency got off the ground because of screw-ups which occured just after the US invaded. I refer to de-baathification and de-militarization, which sent a lot of armed, angry people onto the streets and the failure of the US to send in enough troops. These dumb mistakes, in turn, could not have existed without neo-conservative ideology, which put so much faith in US military power and the mutability of other societies that its proponents convinced its self that all the US had to do was tear down the Iraqi state and a liberal democracy would simply appear.
The idea, the invasion and the insurgency cannot be segregated from one another.
The Kurds are lucky enough to live in a relatively culturally homogeneous region. Of course, they haven’t been above a little ethnic cleansing of Arab Iraqis presumptuous enough to want to live in a cool, temperate part of their own country.
And ask yourself this FaceLift. Given that 2,000,000 Iraqis have fled to other countries to escape Bush’s experiment in bring “democracy” to Iraq, why have virtually none of them fled to the Kurdish paradise?
Moreover, Turkey will not tolerate a Kurdish homeland.
Does FaceLift really believe that more than a vanishingly small minority of the insurgency (Sunni and Shiite) come from Birmingham (or any other foreign place)?
Does FaceLift really believe that if every foreigner left Iraq tomorrow (except for the COW, of course) that there would be a diescernible downturn in the level of violence. Indeed, the bad reputation and evil deeds of the small number of foreign insurgents may even serve to dissuade local Iraqis from joining the insurgency.
Is FaceLift in utter denial of the well reported fact that over 50% of Iraqis support the killing of American troops in Iraq? Even Ratty acknowledged the poll (but not that result) the other night.
Poor old war apologists. Once they thought that victory would speak for itself. Now they are reduced to finding silver linings on very dark clouds.
Still, war apologists grow more entertaining with each evaporated dream and with every forelorn hope.
That’s my silver lining.
Chris:
Chris, where are the long-winded political essays written in the 1980’s and early 90’s from any of the main protaginists like Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle etc that goes into great detail about the democratic revolution in Iraq, how it would work, and how to go about it?
There isn’t any more than a passing reference to that in any of their writing about toppling Saddam in that time.
A lot of the confusion as to why the U.S. is still an occupation force in Iraq could be removed of if people would just accept all the political ballyhoo is hiding the bleeeding obvious: Its about oil and personal profit.
Thats why from day one, U.S. interests were building permanent bases around oil rich provinces and the pipelines. Thats why the first building to be protected was the Ministry of Oil building. The Iraq invasion had nothing to do with WMDs or nation building. If it did we would have found WMDs and Iraq would have water, electricity, and some sort of economy by now.
Its hard to think that the august positions held by the President and his appointees are inhabited by a bunch of low life crooks. But thats how it is. Some folk really want to believe that somehow the Bushites had woolly-headed ideas of creating a better world. Or worst case, maybe they were on about some kind of strategic thingy that gave their country access to oil supplies. Access to oil supplies they already had access to.
Rubbish. The Bushies are just a bunch of crooks. Cheney is a crook. Rice is a crook. Bush is a crook. And they surround themselves with crooks. Cheney left Halliburton with a 34 million dollar handshake. Doesn’t that ring some kind of bell?
—Dick Cheney, 1999, while still CEO of the oil services company, Halliburton. http://zfacts.com/p/682.html
So, Chris, how many civil wars have nations like Britain, France, the US etc had to go through before they finally arrived at some kind of peaceful democracy?
How many relatively new African and South American democracies are still struggling to come to terms with peace and stability?
In fact, isn’t it true that Australia is the first and only democracy formed without a war? Just the history of the British Isles tells us that it has taken hundreds of years to arrive as a democratic nation.
Now you’re saying the liberation of Iraq, and therefore the allies intrusion, has failed because they haven’t arrived at a Western style democracy yet, after a measly four years, including the first years of elimination of a powerful, dominating despotic government and its forces, and the incursion, which is driven from outside forces, and old-guard opportunists.
Yet, against these difficulties, they have had relatively fair elections, despite the Ba’athist boycotts, and some areas of the country are beginning to settle into a pattern of peace, which isn’t heavily publicised, because most of the reporting machines are focused on the trouble-spots, so we almost certainly don’t receive complete, unbiasedreporting, either from Iraq or Afghanistan, where the demopcratic process may be a little more flimsy than hoped, but is nevertheless alive and kicking. I haven’t heard Bush, Howard or Blair say anything but that this will be along protracted process, and that we have to stick at it or fail. You’re the ones says that democracy can only succeed if it takes in the short term, which is devoid of reason.
So I don’t agree at all that democracy has been whipped in Iraq. It may be a different model that is emmerging, and it may have a more Islam*c flavour than anticipated, but there are Islam*c democracies which are perfectly capablee of succeeding without resorting to out and out shariah. Given some time and patience the progress will be made obvious. This burgeoning democracy should be given every opportunity to surface, even at the cost of leaving enough troops there to see it through, and a few less pessimistic voices may help bolster those people Katz mentioned, who are yet in self-determined exile, to return in their nation to strengthen it even more. But this will take the same kind of courage and resolve the Allies have shown in attempting to pull together a democracy in the Middle East.
Of course they were. For a start they could build infrastructure, mass produce war material, conscript millions and physically occupy terrority. Whereas – oh fuck it I’ve said this all before.
Britain was pretty much run as a socialist state under a coalition government during WW2. Where do you think Orwell got so much of the quotidian background for 1984?
No. By mid 1942 it was pretty clear even at the time that the Axis’ lack of acess to raw materials, especially oil, the swarming millions of the Red Army and the US’s incredible industrial might would do ‘em in eventually.
Really, who says? The vast majority of people in muslim countries, like anywhere else in the world, seem to just want to be to left alone to get on with their lives in peace. You’ll notice the overwhelming majority of the most populated muslim country in the world, Indonesia, turned with revulsion on the Bali bombers.
Oh that kind of “major coup”. In that case I suggest you start worrying about Pakistan instead. They already have the bomb plus a nasty streak of fundmentalism, a very unstable system of governance and a very perfidious intelligence/security apparatus with all sorts of snakey ties to Osama et al.
A self-created target. Talk about filling a hole with the dirt you dug out of it.
Please n*me ‘em. I suspect I’m gonna have a lot of sarky fun with your answer.
Maybe. On the other hand, do we really want to be embroiled in non-stop wars, police actions and interventions all around the globe in perpetuity? Besides where exactly would our people in power with the ability to commit us to such premptive strikes draw the line between evil dictators and necessary strongmen? “He may be a bastard but he’s our bastard” It’s been an awfully blurry line in the past.
I was the one taking bets on the outcome. It soon dawned me I could really rake it by rigging ‘em in advance. I should have had my own UN Security Council seat by now. Can’t think what went wrong.
No.
Then there’s also Burma, North Korea, Libya, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Syria, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan (maybe we should airdrop scrabble sets there?), Azerbaijan, the Congo, Belarus. And I’m sure others can think of more. All places run by ruthless dictatorships and oligarchies and/or where life is shit for most ordinary people. Maybe Cuba and China too? Fiji?
Care to draw up and prioritise a “to do list” here? One that will receive concerted supported from a western democratic world alternately spooked, jaded and cynical about the Mesopotamian caper?
Not since the Yanks got so throughly overstretched in Mesopotamia. Come to think of it they didn’t much in the past either. See the history of Africa over the past 50 years for starters. Or Kuwait in 1990. On the other hand the yanks did throughly shut down the poms and frogs’ little Suez escapade albeit by rattling financial and not military sabres.
Look FL, if were gonna have a global policeman, it might as well be the yanks. For all their faults they still have one of the most open Governments in the world, an exuberent populace always holding it to account, the best miltiary muscle around (just been inspecting some of it at the Australian International Airshow. Some of those new smart munitions are very clever indeed) and excellent music. It’s just their current leadership couldn’t organise a condom in a brothel.
And David M.
I won’t. But then again Iraq is not the first democratic government in the Arab world. Good luck with your future career as a geopolitical analyst. You’ll need it.
A little and hopefully amusing grace note for my rave above.
When Eisenhower rang Eden to shut down the Suez caper, allegedly his opening words were “I assume you have lost your mind?”. (liver actually Ike)
Those were the glory days of the American Empire when Republicans were worldly and pragmatic foils to idealistic and energetic Democrats.
When histories of the 20th century are written, the Western Left will be judged harshly for its draining of the world’s moral resources by its pathological obsession with the Palestinians and totally ignoring far more worthy advances such as the creation of an independent Kurdistan after WW1. But there are no Jews or American “imperialists” to bash in all these other non-Palestinian causes, are there?
Nabakov
Would this be the same idealist Democrats whom Clem Atlee had to talk out of using nukes on China? And the same pragmatic Republicans whom Harold MacMillan had to talk out of thinking of nukes as ‘just like any other weapon?’
I’m always bemused when people go to left-leaning websites and praise “good” imperialists. Nice Ike! Much better than that nasty Mr Bush!
Shall we forget to mention Iran, 1953?
FaceLift has as much evidence for this pious little prayer coming true as he has for the proposition that the Virgin Mary will appear over Baghdad, causing the mass conversion of Iraqis to Catholicism.
Precisely zero.
PS, F*ceLift, if you can’t even force yourself to type the word Islamic, how empathetic can you be about the hopes and fears of Muslims?
Well I’m always bemused when people erect and beat up strawmen. Surely, and if you’re confident of the points you want to make, isn’t addressing a real argument much more intellectually statisfying?
At what point Dave did you think my use of the word of the term “glory days” did not refer to the Yanks pulling the pin on miscalculated geo-political adventurism by other countries. T’was the context between my last two posts in which I proffered this observation.
Oh of course Operation Ajax was utterly unwarranted interference in another country’s affairs but at least it was carried out with a fair measure of professionalism and not much violence unlike the most recent overt US incursion into the region.
And Iran ‘53 was all about the oil anyway – which kinda deflates your recent protestations that the latest US ME adventure is really about doing good because it needs to be done.
And speaking of “when people go to left-leaning websites and praise “goodâ€? imperialists”, aren’t you affilated with that Last Superpower mob who do nothing but that?
Also have a good look at your new gravatar. Are you trying to position yourself as a man of action, constantly on the phone to mobilise the cadres? It looks more like you’re about to take a well cast fishing line.
If you can’t even see that a medium action headshot in a centimetre square thumbnail is always gonna look really dicky, then you’ll never be able to grasp the big picture.
Brendon:
None of what you wrote even comes close to proving that the Iraq war was about oil. Of course the US made securing the oil a priority when they went into Iraq. It’s Iraq. Oil is the countries main earner and would most certainly have been the first thing the insurgents went after had it not been secured. You would have to be a really stupid occupier to not place a premium on securing the oil.
If you had some evidence other than that refuted above then the fact that Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton and insightfully observed that there is lots of oil in the Middle East might back up your case. Standing alone it no more proves that Iraq was about oil than Robert McNamara’s resume proves that Vietnam was about the Ford Motor Companies insatiable rubber lust.
Facelift:
You ask the spurious question “how many civil wars have nations like Britain, France, the US etc had to go through before they finally arrived at some kind of peaceful democracy?�
It’s spurious because none of those countries had a liberal democracy imposed on them from the other side of the world. Your description of the violence in Iraq as being the work of “outside forces, and old-guard opportunists� is also extremely disingenuous. Al Qaeda’s foreign fighters make up a very small percentage of those Iraqis engaged in violence. The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate says that while Al Qaeda plays a role in accelerating (NOT creating) sectarianism the real driver of violence in Iraq is based on “hardening ethno-sectarian divisions� and “ALL sides ready recourse to violence�.
You also accuse me of believing that “democracy can only succeed if it takes in the short term, which is devoid of reason�. The fact is that it is not you, me, or President Bush who is paying for the war in Iraq but the American people. They have had enough. 63% of them want troops out by the end of 2008, so if stable democracy requires and American presence as you seem to think judging by your comments about “leaving enough troops there to see it through� then it has until 2009 when the Americans get a new President at the latest to succeed. Perhaps it can succeed without American troops, and I hope it can.
Thanks for the discussion, Chris and Nabakov, you make some excellent comments, some of which I concede, acknowledging your obvious knowledge and interest in these areas, and I’m not out for an arguement for arguement’s sake, but I still think we’re brazenly cowardly to ignore the plight of another nation if we have it in our power to drive out oppression. For instance, if the west had heeded Churchill’s warning and proactively stopped Hitler from marching into Czechoslovakia the rest of Europe may have kurbed his intentions somewhat, but the risk was always high, as it always must be.
Your points illustrate the difficulties extremely well, and I can only agree with you when you highlight that any kind of invasion which necessitates war is going to be difficult to maintain, resource and sustain, are ugly and destructive, and enemies are not always as obvious as they may appear to the various sides who dispute the wisdom of entering into conflict or not. Sadly, politics in the US, UK and Australia have made this into a ’sides’ issue, which makes the people of Iraq a side issue. In times of wart there is normally a more bipartisan approach to solving the difficulties, but this is almasot creating a war between the left and right, not because of the actual situation in Iraq, orr elsewhere, but because the left and right both cravee power above reality.
Time will tell if Iraq will be successfully democratised. I believe it will, and that the invasion will be proven to be right, if not totally well organised. These things have a way of potentially getting away from the instigators, and making them look stupid for trying. We’ll never know, but would leqvuing Sadaam in power ultimately have caused less destruction in the ME or more?
My point is that it shouldn’t be left to the US to be the world’s policeman. There needs to be an international force, not a single entity, and a force which really has power to shift obvious despots like Mugabe, who has clearly lost the plot and is taking it out on his own people. The UN is pathetic, all diplomacy and no progress, all vote, veto and vascillation.
Katz, I add the asterix because in the past my comments have gone into moderation on LP when I’ve used the full terms Muslim, Mohammed or Islamic. I have no problem whatsoever with using these terms fully, as long as the moderator is alert.
I reckon it’s a brave man that keeps up the viewpoint that you do Facelift, and I admire the reasoning behind your stance. You have a clear ethical position, one that’s difficult to argue with.
But as Nabs and others have pointed out ad infinitum, the level of competence demonstrated by the prosecutors of the GWOT has ranged from low, to below the plumb line. And every SNAFU that occurs means the nearest GWOT prosecutor heads to the pulpit and demands “patience” and “TEH staying TEH course”.
It’s been an embarrassment for nigh on 3 years now, and to hear the UN Head and the Iraqi PM being interrupted by an exploding mortar while speech-makin’ this morning is like a scene dropped from Monty Python’s Life of Brian.
They dodge the mortars while Dolly dodges responsibility back in the Manor.
It’s heartbreaking, and tragically, it’s grid-locked.
No, it’s quite easy to undermine FaceLift’s argument.
Nabs’s question of competence is a good one. But it can be proven only retrospectively. (There were those of us who suspected the competency of the COW from Day One. I grant, however, that the proof of that argument can be made only retrospectively.)
The killing argument against the FaceLifts of this world is to demand of apologists like FaceLift why they are not pressing hard for a greater commitment to what they clearly and conscientiously believe is A Good Cause. Aren’t they in fact acknowledging their lack of conviction by refusing to demand that the COW authorities do all in their power to bring about their desired solution?
Instead, many of these apologists waste their breath bleating about TEH LEFT’s refusal to do something that TEH LEFT don’t want to do.
Wouldn’t FaceLift’s breath be put to better use demanding a greater effort from the COW authorities who purportedly want to Do Something?
After my few months here, Nabakov, you are the second-last person I would take advice on debate from. You’ve demonstrated to me time and again that you are only comfortable either having people agree with you, or bitterly attacking those who don’t.
First you accuse me of attacking a straw man, and then you defend yourself from the very point I was making:
The voice of Kissinger! You appear to actually be saying you’d prefer a ruling class that can oppress people quietly and professionally.
Any time you want to start talking about your ideas on how to get rid of dictators, instead of fond reminiscing about the good ole days with Ike, you’ll be worth paying real attention to.
No. I support what Bush did in Iraq.
He did it not because he is a “good” person, but because it is in the interests of his class to get rid of the tyrannies in the Middle East that the USA has been propping up. The reason that it is in the interests of his class to do it is that the old policy of supporting dictatorships led to 9-11 – proof that the USA can no longer shelter with impunity behind two oceans as it holds back democracy throughout the world.
And the USA has done many wrong things in Iraq, including the attempt to foist an undemocratic regime on the people there. It’s a good thing the Iraqis stood up to Bush and stopped that happening, because it would have been a very bad thing indeed. Just because Bush did a thing I approve of once doesn’t mean he can be trusted at all.
If the only thing Bush was interested in was oil, why wouldn’t he just have done another evil deal with Sadaam? Why would Bush jeapordise his position in the Republican Party, turn the powerful Realpolitik school of the ruling class against him, when there were many easier ways to get hold of the oil?
You really are acting like a bully, Nabakov. Is there a course where I can learn how to make personal attacks on people because I don’t like their arguments, or do I have to work it out myself?
Chris,
using the classic method of eliminating bogus reasons for the Iraq invasion and occupation, the oil motive is all that is left. Not the strategic/national interest motive, I mean the grubby, personal avarice one.
Lets be intelligent and get rid of the bogus WMDs reason out of the way, OK?
What’s next? Oh yeah, the other one that Hitchens touts: Domocracy.
How about Bush wanting to create a true democratic state. OK, lets look at that a bit more closely shall we?
Hitchen’s take that Bush is out to save the world and make it democratic is laughable. All you have to do is read up the sparring between Sistani and the Whitehouse on self determination, elections and the constitution in Iraq.
Here is a timeline that shows a sovereign democratic state was the last thing on their minds:
June 2003
The first American plan was to get the Iraq they wanted, and so elections would be held only AFTER a new national constitution had been written by a handpicked, exile-led, American-beholden, group. The American provisional administration was concerned about the upcoming ad-hoc June 03 election Iraqi. So they cancelled it. Subsequent protests in Najaf, the home city of the Shiite religious establishment was led by Grand Ayatollah Sistani. Sadr starts his insurrections at about that time.
Late 2003
The Whitehouse blocked Sistani’s demand for direct elections several months, until it became clear that the American-installed Iraqi-exiles like Allawi and Chalabi had no power to keep up the scam.
The Bush league’s solution, of course, was to come up with a new scam — a complicated series of steps with “caucuses” (indirect elections, with participants first vetted by the Americans) to choose an interim government that would be given nominal sovereignty, but with Iraqis not allowed to vote directly for their own leaders until the end of 2005. Even then the Iraqi people got their supreme law (constitution) given to them by America. Sistani’s response was to demand a full election by June 2004.
http://www.needlenose.com/pMachineFree2.2.1/weblog.php?id=P620
Jan/Feb 2004
The Whitehouse kept up dithering and stalling. For instance, they cancelled a census plan that would have helped the election process. Sistani organized massive protests in Basra and Baghdad to show Bush who the real boss in Iraq was. There were hundreds of thousands on the streets.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2004/01/19/iraqi_shiites_demand_elections_in_peaceful_protest/
Bush crapped himself, and despite still complaining that there were major problems, he caved in and asked the UN to make a new transition for government that included DIRECT elections as Sistani demanded.
Feb/May 2004
The Bush league then did their best work behind the scenes, pressuring Kofi Annan to yield to an election date AFTER the U.S. voting in November, pushing through a “transitional administrative law” intended to influence the eventual constitution, and making Allawi the interim Prime Minister over the UN’s original pick, Hussein Shahristani.
Nevertheless, Sistani came away with the bulk of the winnings — not just direct elections for a government, that the Bushites did NOT want, but also an election to vote in an assembly to write a Constitution that would supercede the U.S.-written one. Also Sistani got UN involvement to help reduce rigged result. That did not work as the place was still too dangerous for UN inspectors in Jan 2005.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/06/09/un_resolution_doesnt_meet_kurds_demand/
George Bush is claiming credit on the surface, but away from the cameras I bet he was angry and scheming to keep Sistani from forcing any more unwanted democracy down his throat. Sistani has dragged Dubya and his crew against their will, kicking and screaming, every step of the way. And that has been a disaster, because a strong independent Iraq is not what Bush wants.
Now Chris, it is obvious that Bush never really wanted a a REAL democratic independent state in Iraq. And he sure as hell wanted to get that Iraq constitution written up and waiting for the incoming government. And today we all know what the most important peice of legislation is as far as Bush is concerned…..DON’T WE, HMMM???!!!
No WMDs, no democracy.
Whats left?
And while you are moderating my last post, could you fix up the spelling and grammar? LOL
David Jackmanson:
You mean like the one he did with Gadaffi?
The deal with Gaddafi came about because of the way Saddam was dealt with.
Steve At The Pub,
and what does that tell you about Bush’s true intentions. Exxon gets a good deal, and all of a sudden the Libyan dictatorship is AOK.
Fiddlesticks to Bush’s intentions.
What opportunities to spread freedom have occured from the Iraq invasion?
This is a separate question to the one of Bush’s personal and political motives, and one that might generate some hopes and plans, instead of carping.
DJ, we’ve done the “useful idiot” argument to death.
If you think the misery of Bush’s failed project is worth whatever benefits that might arise, well and good, but surely you don’t intend to write a blank cheque on the Bank of Misery.
There must come a point when even you’d say, “No, too many people have suffered to justify any possible beneficial outcome.
As you raised the “unintended consequences” argument you are compelled to state the limits of tolerability on the costs for any level of reward in Iraq and elsewhere.
For example, would it be justified to depopulate the entire nation of Iraq in order to establish an acceptable regime there?
Presuming you say no to this proposition, exactly where do you draw the line?
Come on Katz, you’re not looking at this right.
After all, the Japanese conquest of Asia gave inspiration to anti-colonial independence movements; the Black Plague brought a bunch of hygiene improvements in its wake; and the Nazis.. well… they sure gave Zionists some motivation to finally get organised.
Stop playin’ the man, and check the master plan, dude.
My mistake LE.
You’ve gotta break some eggs to get street cred as an egg-breaker.
When the end is to continue to use the means, the end always justifies the means.
Basic Just War Theory:
A war isn’t justified if it don’t have a reasonable chance of success and if it does greater harm than the harms it is intended to end.
I’m with Katz. NO I’ll go further – Bush and his supporters are seriously overdrawn at the Bank of Human Misery. No more promises of a bright, glorious future, if only we can extend the overdraft a bit more. Time to foreclose, and force these guys to get back in the black.
Well, cheer up and read the War Nerd. http://www.exile.ru/2007-March-06/war_nerd.html
Its certainly created opportunities for Iran. Not sure about “freedom” just yet.
I like his post-Con wishlist map of the Middle East too. http://www.exile.ru/transient/258/war-nerd-map.jpg
Katz, the poll this week in Iraq (which I’ve discussed and linked to at an anti-war UK Socialist blog here), with which the anti-war media is carefully spreading doom and gloom shows some interesting opinions in Iraq.
The most interesting thing is that 88% of those polled reject attacks on Iraqi Government facilities, even while a majority support attacks on US forces. The public clearly understands the difference between the Government on the one hand, and the hard-core Sunni rejectionists and jihadis who will never lay down their arms.
Interestingly enough, quoting my comment from the other blog:
Bush, Bush, Bush. You know something. I get it. Many LP regulars really don’t like Bush. But what do you like?
OK. Let me try a hypothetical thought experiment.
What if the numbers existed to impeach Bush now, and he was impeached and found guilty? Hounded from office, his influence broken. A 4-year Congressional enquiry begins which will eventually jail everyone from Rumsfeld to the corporal who was running a protection racket in Ramadi.
What would you want to do in Iraq if President [insert whatever name gives you most political validation here] then announced that the geopolitical articles and comments on Larvatus Prodeo were to become part of the National Security Council required daily reading?
What would you want to see done in Iraq?
What hopes, plans and aspirations do you think the Iraqi people have, and what, if anything, can be done to help?
The same poll that said a majority of Iraqis support attacks on US forces also says that (quoting myself again):
which is an interesting contradiction. Majorities both support attacks on US troops, and do NOT think that US forces should leave immediately.
I can’t give you a direct answer in figures. What I can do is discuss the reasonable issue of consent to the war. It can be argued that the USA did not make a genuine attempt to seek consent for war from the Iraqi people.
(I separate this from the issue of UN approval, as I think the UN has no political legitimacy at all).
So one has to go back to the question – do you support the right of people to use violence against dictatorial governments?
If you do, what sort of approach to overthrowing a dictator like Sadaam do you use. It’s important to note that without heavy weapons – artillery and tanks – and air support, an insurgency could not have defeated Sadaam’s armed forces, so the question of “should we give them the means to fight?”
Lefty E, for a miserable young/old reactionary/fascist the War Nerd is amazingly readable, entertaining and informative. I’ve read his entire back catalogue, and I didn’t realise someone I’d vaguely interacted with online had also read it.
comment spaminated
David Jackmanson:
But David,
I was replying to Steve at the pub. And my reply has context in that regard.
As far as the Imbecile’s intentions, its shorthand for the neoconservatives intentions. Yes we all know George can barely read ot write. No need to rub it in.
But anyway David, are you trying to say that Washington has invaded Iraq and some good can come of it?
Like Hitler was responsible for peace breaking out in 1945?
Well then, lets all support the Nazi invasion of Poland.
This is a non sequitur to your rather chilling hint that you’d be prepared to see an awful lot of Iraqis suffer. But I do commend your frankness, at least.
Nice hypothetical!
Any response must be brief and therefore incomplete. I attempt only to outline.
My druthers would be that the US commits enormous resources (including military) to clean up the mess. (Your fellow cadres at LSP constantly mischaracterise me on this issue. They clearly can’t read for meaning.) But the US hasn’t done that under Bush and they won’t do it under his successors.
The central point to recognise is that the US will by the end of Bush be in a much weakened military, diplomatic, and emotional state, none of which was the making of the incoming president.
Therefore, the president would not face powerful domestic pressure to maintain a bellicose profile.
The policy would begin with the recognition that Shiite forces are preponderant. The key would be to woo a Shiite bloc away from Iranian domination. By now it is too late to exclude the Iranians altogether.
At the the same time aid and patronage would be extended to any bloc that followed a timetable of extension of human rights and encouragement of civil society. One of those programs is the repatriation of refugees. I don’t hold out much hope for this, but in the absense of any other means, including military, this is the only workable lever available to the US.
Simultaneously, Iraq’s powerful neighbours would be discouraged from supplying arms to their proxies in an Iraqi civil war. This can be done by the traditional balance of power means, that is extending aid to the less powerful side. Again, there are no guarantees here.
As you can see, there is a motif here. At present the US is uniquely hated in the Middle East. If the US were uniquely potent, then this wouldn’t matter. But Bush’s Iraq fiasco has demonstrated that the US, though powerful, is insufficiently powerful to get its way by force.
Thus, the overall strategy is to make the reputation of the US proportionate with its power. In time, governments and people in the ME would come to recognise that the US had much to offer the region. US power has a greater propensity for benigness than, say, Russia and Iran. Look at the way in which China is extending its influence in the world. China’s rise is rapid and powerful and productive of remarkably little friction with local peoples. The US should be more than capable of that feat.
This is the way the US used to influence in selective parts of the world, before they grew drunk on the mirage of their military might.
I think it does follow. If you don’t think the suffering caused by the war is legitimate, in part because the Iraqi people did not make the decision themselves to wage war, how should a people make that decision, and when is it legitmate to support them with armed force or equipment?
The central point to recognise is that the US will by the end of Bush be in a much weakened military, diplomatic, and emotional state, none of which was the making of the incoming president.
Nor is that all the work of the current one. The US is already declining in power. PNAC’s pre-Iraq-invasion fantasies of ‘full spectrum dominance’, which were swallowed by the gullible of both left and right, were just that – fantasies.
Since US power is in decline, it becomes of less interest to the USA to suppress democracy by force – they have to switch sides, or at least stop pretending that they can hold down half the world. If they won’t release their grip, 9-11 shows how (relatively) easy and cheap to launch a major terrorist attack.
I would agree there.
It can be hard to read for meaning when you’re trying to brush off the silly, snide insults that are all too common from some of the participants here.
Yes, this has been my argument since before “Shock and Awe” began. Bush’s contribution to the decline of the United States was to prove to all what only a few of us previously suspected.
I think you are over-emphasising the importance of the bolded bit. 9/11 became as important as it did only because Bush desperately wanted to make it as important as it became.
That’s no excuse.
You don’t find it significant that an operation that must have cost in the region of hundreds of thousands of dollars at most can cause billions of dollars damage to the heart of an American city?
I think 9-11 has vast significance over and above any distortions that President Bush may have engaged in.
No, really. If you want to exhort LS people to better ways of thinking, try thinking about the stupid, snide comments that have been made about us. Catallaxy-types were copping the same attitude on the ‘Libertarians for Loud Noise’ thread.
I’m not talking about valid criticisms or questions about things that deserve to be fleshed out, but stupid, snide attacks implying that no-one reasonable could possibly hold a point of view different to the left-leaning social democracy that appears to be the majority of LP.
I try and rise above that, as do quite a few of the regulars/posters here.
Sometimes you do and sometimes you just snarl.
And there are others who don’t even bother trying to rise above it at all – they like to sneer and snarl and they seem to want to make this site a very uncomfortable place for anyone with differing opinions.
If you, as someone who is broadly in line with the majority opinon here at LP, wants the minority to lift their game, I suggest you have a look at how some people in the majority here operate.
See, there you go again.
I didn’t say anything to contradict this.
I didn’t say 9/11 was unimportant.
I said that Bush exaggerated its importance and its significance for his own purposes.
I don’t picture myself as representing anything here except my own opinions. As far as I know, there is no conspiracy of a repressive majority on LP.
But please point out any evidence to the contrary.
I love a good conspiracy theory.
Backing up Katz’ last note, I agree with him strongly on some points, and disagree strongly on others.
There are commenters who have refer to “an LP groupthink” for purposes of discussion, and it just doesn’t exist. And as a smokescreen for argument, it’s useless to anyone that actually reads the blog regularly.
Repeating point above, I admire Facelift’s moral reading on the need for a strong Western response to dictatorships that damage societies at their core, but I don’t believe that damaging another society at its core is an effective, or intelligent reponse.
And as is becoming increasingly clear, the Bush cabal has not only caused much damage in Iraq, it’s causing years of damage to the status of the US govt, both domestically, and around the world.
And by the way, when I last commented, the Iraqi President had ducked a nearby mortar attack. 48 hours later, the vice president is carrying shrapnel from a suicide bombers attack.
The position that “Everything is/and or will be soon great in Iraq” is not only looking ill-informed and misguided, it’s looking downright immoral.
Katz, I said:
You said:
And I disagree. I also think your comment downgrades, incorrectly, the significance of 9-11. Which is why I said what I did.
You said I was over-emphasising the significance of the 9-11 attacks, without any suggestions as to what you think the correct emphasis is. How am I supposed to react when you say nothing to my point except for irrelevantly bringing President Bush into things?
9-11 is vitally significant in world politics, no matter how right or wrong President Bush’s take was.
So if my impatient reply to you is wrong, what do you think the USA is capable of doing in the world, and how easy will it be for those opposed to the USA to attack it on its home soil?
You haven’t noticed the sneering I and others have had to put up with when arguing a point that differs from the main tendencies at this site? Try re-reading the Iraq threads from late January, including ‘Strange Alignments’.
Argument there goes well beyond criticism of my pro-war position, and frequently descends into misrepresentation, and sneers.
And you may remember the David Hicks thread where I pointed out that he is being held, perfectly legally, as a POW, and you were one of the few people suspicious of the USA who was able to admit that I had a point.
That simple point, which I proved with quotations from black-letter law, was not well received:
It’s not a bloody conspiracy theory, it’s pointing out that some of the regulars here, on a site whose broad political tendency you appear to broadly agree with, act like they want a comfortable, cliquey echo-chamber for their own opinions, which damages the chances of promoting actual argument from different viewpoints.
What do you think is an effective or intelligent response? Do you have an answer or at least some thoughts towards one, or do you just want to be glad that you are not as evil as the President?
Katz,
Well, thanks for the complement, but I don’t claim ot speak for any others! And an entire movement of FaceLifts! God forbid!
Where did you ever ‘kill’ my arguement? By telling me to argue for something else? Fix your owwn brain before you start on mine, thanks! The obvious conclusion to your arguement is that we shoould still be waiting for the UN to make a decision on whether to lift sanctions from Saddam’s oppressed Iraq, that nothing should have been do to defend and protect (and appease) the American people from suicide bombers who deliberately and calculatedly fly aircraft into highrise buildings, that Afghanis and Iraqis can fend for themselves and go to hell! And you can actually come up with a miriad of salient reasons for your suggested inaction! Brilliant! Let’s all stand still and applaud!
My view of the Katz’s (and Nabakov’s) of this world is that they are (often, but not always) brilliant and forthright analysts, and technically and informationally bulging, but have so many viable options flitting through their extremely furtile, clever minds that ultimately when a decision needs to be made about an urgent action their reasoning potentially gets completely in the way.
A good decisive leader would enjoy engaging their thoughts because they do come up with some absolutely cracking sound reasons for taking or not taking certain actions, but when it comes to taking the hard decisions they may have to be dismissed from the room so that something can actually be done and a decision made. The UN is somewhat like this. Let them make resolutions and discuss options, but lets have a separate body which actually makes decisions and gets the job done before another generation of some nation is terminated.
By the way, Katz. It’s OK to address me face to face, rather than in the third person as in my two paragraphs above, which are actually quite rude don’t you think, rather like talking behind someone’s back, and having a negative opinion! And I don’t know where you got the idea I’m representing a right vs left attack-pack, when in fact I’m arguing for a bipartisan think tank which results in an action plan to help weaker nations than ours!!!
It’s wrong to suggest that Iraq was in any way motivated by the desire to topple Saddam because he was a dictator. It was because he was the dictator neo-Cons obsessed about.
People in other countries should be trusted to sort out their own destinies. There should be responses to genocide and humanitarian disasters, but the chaos and destruction Iraq has caused should give very great pause to anyone advocating war.
There is just no onus placed on “The West” to take on its imperialist civilising mission in the Middle East, or anywhere else.
FaceLift,
In the earlier post I was talking about you, not to you. You were the subject, not the object.
You share with others only one quality in which I was interested. That is your propensity to argue with the Left while requiring more action from the Right. If you want more action from the right, why not argue with them?
I’m not talking about your brain at all. I’m talking about where you would be better employed making an effort to change things in ways you seem to want.
I don’t speak for the UN or for anyone else. If you want more action in Iraq, complain to Bush, Blair and Howard, not to us Lefties. We have nothing to do with the inadequate response made by the COW.
It’s the COW that’s losing Iraq, not the Left.
Kim,
Since when was Bill Clinton a neo-con? He was seeking justice a aginst Saddaam’s oppressive regime in 1998.
But in 2002 he said the actions of 1998 were not tough enough:
Granted, Clinton did not support the war option, and gave sound reasons for his doubts, but he said one thing which is key to this discussion:
And the talk of going into Iraq purely for oil, doesn’t add up when you consider Bush went into Afghanistan first, for basically the same reasons he subsequently went into Iraq, to clean up the regimes with the greatest risks he saw in the Middle East. Clinton, mesmerised by the dilemma, ummed and aahed, Bush, pushed along bby 9/11, took action, but the sentiments were still the same. The removal of a dictatorship was on their minds, neo-con, or trado-liberal.
Which word sends us into moderation? I’ll add an asterisk!!!
That was more than two links!
Check out where that Act came from, FaceLift – it was inspired by the Neo-cons and passed by the Republican controlled Congress. One of the reasons Clinton signed it was that small matter of Ms Lewinsky.
Indeed, Kim?
Typical Adamic accusative – ‘the woman made me do it!’
And we wonder why Saddam was seriously diminished under both Bush administrations yet rose again and thrived under the Clinton administration! Old Bill was a brilliant thinker easily compromised.
And Clinton didn’t mean when he said he pushed for regime change by supporting the Iraqi opposition, but if Sadaam continued to play up he would advocate force?
Sorry, FaceLift, in what way did he “rise again”? His army was in ruins, he dismantled his WMD, the country’s economy fell apart, half a million kids died as a result of sanctions… I’m not holding a brief for Clinton on this one, and I don’t see what it proves in terms of the argument as to whether the war was just or appropriate to say “Clinton was anti-Saddam too”.
Well, Kim, Clinton was anti-Saddam in words, but made himself pro-Saddam in actions, caught between two great great injustices, whther to leave him in power as a despot, or to demolish his influence through force, either of which results in the loss of innocent lives, as he correctly observed, although, unfortunately, he clearly viewed Saddam as a tolerable despot who could be kept in check through UN sanctions. Nevertheless, he was open about the difficulties of being decisive.
Which is why I highlighted his observation that, ‘Weighing the risks and making the calls are what we elect leaders to do.’ So who’s to blame for the current losses and the inevitable mess of war? The intervention (or lack of intervention) of Bush or Clinton, or the oppressive regime of Saddam, which has been followed, after his demise, by the invasive insurgency of militant opportunists?
______________________
By the way, as a comment on your original post, it’s ironic, and also tragic, to consider that the West considers suicide evidence of despair and defeat, whilst the Islamists consider it evidence of valour and victory.
Erm, in moderation, but no links used!!!
“What do you think is an effective or intelligent response? Do you have an answer or at least some thoughts towards one, or do you just want to be glad that you are not as evil as the President?’
Sorry I’ve been away, and Kim has covered the motivation ably enough.
I’ve given this action time David, 4 years now. If yours, or anyone else’s key interest was in dealing with the evils of Hussein, the years in which to make a real impact were 1989/1990 when the vast majority of his most heinous crimes against humanity were committed.
These crimes were communicated back to the US Congress at the time, but at no time looked like provoking an action. The President on deck then was Bush Sr.
Do I comfort myself with a moral relativity with Bush? Jeezus lord, that’s a sad inference. How many times does it need to be repeated that Iraq posed no immediate specific threat to anyone at the time of the 2003 invasion? Please see Nabakov’s list of countries that provide a constant threat of security. Or google it yourself if you are so distanced from his views.
Are you forgetting most of the world chose not to join Bush on the folly? It takes a peculiar character to buy into such a thin plan – sadly, our Prime Minister was one of the few to swallow the pitch. A lot of countries can now congratulate themselves on a wise decision. Perhaps in the future, we will have equally wise guidance.
Diplomacy David. That’s the route I would choose. It’s the one that Condi is working right about now. As pointed out upthread, there’s going to be a sh*tload of mess to clean up, and that’s not a very sexy role to contract out to a company is it? And if a country posed no threat to mine, I’m pretty sure I would not commission people to fabricate tales to suggest that it did.
I’ll keep thinking through what actions I could take. Do I have Rumsfeld and Cheney in my cabinet to assist me, or am I deciding alone?
David Jackmanson Says:
It’s much, much more significant that the loyal Bushies decided to spend a couple of trillion dollars in response, in a way that actually increases the chances of a repeat attack on the US.
Irrelevant. I’m not arguing about Bush’s motives. I’m arguing about what people who support democracy and freedom should do to overthrow dictatorships.
I think we should take a more internationalist approach than that.
Which is why I have already raised the issue of consent, above, and asked people to state some thoughts towards the idea of how it can be properly measured.
It is, however, perfectly legitimate to suppot people who say they want Western democracy and are prepared to fight for it.
Many who criticise Bush’s conception and handling of the Iraq war have thrown the baby out with the bathwater and appear to be advocating positions that mean, in effect, that no armed struggle against the dictator of a sovereign state could ever be legitimate.
If people do believe that, I believe the opposite.
In particular, do people think that the uprising against Sadaam in 1992 should have been supported, or (as happened) betrayed by the first President Bush?
I think it should have been supported with tanks, artillery and air support, and that the Iraqi people should have been helped to overthrow Sadaam in 1992.
In the Spanish Civil War, Western governments sat on their hands and let the fascists win, while left-wingers demanded armed support for the Spanish left, and broke laws to provide it.
What has changed in the last 70 years?
Yes. I was greatly mistaken in opposing the 1990/1 war on Sadaam, and think that I should have been calling for his overthrow then.
Does your statement mean that you think that too?
Except the people of Iraq. Are they not our concern?
There is also the little matter of the invasions of Kuwait and Iran. Do you really think a ruler who acts like Sadaam did deserves anything other than to be overthrown?
So in the future, you hope for a world where governments sit on their hands and do nothing to get rid of dictators? It’s not very wise to let fascists keep on ruling, in my opinion. You seem to be arguing for the same ’stablility’ that the French and Russian foreign offices like, and that Henry Kissinger was the number-one promoter of.
Those countries you praise for not taking part in the Iraq war offered nothing except more of the same. They were not taking a point of view you approve of for moral reasons, but because they did not see it as in their interests to encourage democracy in the MidEast.
It’s your Cabinet, you can appoint who you like. If you understood the habits of power instead of opposition, you wouldn’t need to ask that question.
More carping.
No, it is NOT much more significant.
The significant fact is that the USA can now be attacked, cheaply and easily, on home soil by the people it has helped to oppress for the last 60 years.
The best way to guarantee a repeat attack on the scale of 9-11 would be to change nothing, to keep supporting ‘moderate’ Arab governments that crush democracy to keep things ’stable’.
The only way to stop the motivation for more 9-11s is to remove the oppression – which means that the US’ ‘moderate’ Arab allies – Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and so on – will have to have new governments.
What are you going to do when the trouble brewing in Egypt boils over? Wholeheartedly support the people as they overthrow the Mubarak regime? Or not?
Me:
DJ’s attempt to explain why he isn’t complaining to Bush et al.
There is no parallel between the two postions. As you stated, the West did nothing during the Spanish civil War.
Conversely, in Iraq Bush promised nothing less than a political, social and cultural revolution in Iraq and the wider Middle East. And he committed many military, financial, diplomatic and human resources to that task. By your own analysis, this commitment is failing. Again, by your own analysis, the solution lies in greater and perhaps more intelligent commitment of resources to this project.
Do the Left have these resources? Of course not, so why nag the Left? It’s Bush’s problem.
Times a-wasting DJ. You should be complaining to Bush.
‘the people’ in this case being the Muslim Brotherhood unless, of course, the sterling efforts of the Last Superpower folks across all messageboards on teh 1N7E|2\/\/38z can breathe life into the bullet-ridden corpse of Arab secularism. Keep bloggin’ for freedom, DJ
Yes, he did.
What? How on earth do you infer that that is my opinion?
In my opinion (for which I am roundly abused here) the political (at least) revolution in Iraq that Bush fomented has succeeded in destroying Sadaam’s government, and creating a new, democratically elected, broadly representative government, that by its example is a threat to every dictatorship, Sunni or Shia, in the region.
Indeed. Left-wingers should be complaining loudly that Bush has done nothing to overthrow the Saudis and the Egyptians for a start, and building public support for such revolutions. I’ll remember to make that point more often. We should be criticising Bush for not going far enough fast enough.
I didn’t say that the Western Left, who are indeed without resources, should be taking armed action in these places themselves. But they should be at least demanding it from Bush and the West in general.
Instead, the vast majority of the self-identified ‘Left’ demands “stability”, putting itself in the camp of the reactionary Right.
Can I infer from this statement that you support the oppression of the Muslim Brotherhood by the Mubarak regime? That you somehow think that democracy in Egypt can happen without getting rid of Mubarak?
Or do you actually have no opinion at all, and just intend to snipe from the sidelines while saying nothing about what you think should happen?
Me:
DJ, apparently genuinely surprised at the suggestion:
Easy!
If everything were going swimmingly, DJ, there’d be no reason to hector Bush’s opponents. All Bush apologists would have to do is point to the scoreboard, as many did in the early days of Bush’s Awfully Big Mesopotamian Adventure, when they gloated: “We’re all neo-cons now!”
(Ah, the good old days!)
And DJ, the rest of your post is a lament about about Bush’s shortcomings in not toppling still more regimes.
Clearly, you believe the wheels are falling off, even though you don’t want to admit it.
Why not? I wonder…
Applying your own standards, DJ:
Am I to infer that you’re to be in favour of endless carnage and open-ended bloody civil/international conflict regardless of consequences or end result so long as the intentions behind the instigation of such were noble and democratic?
That you believe democracy springs from the barrel of a gun, and the gun is the only, (or the most favorable) option open to democratizers?
Are you willing to maintain that if direct elections/overthrow of dictatorships leads to the election of Islamic fundamentalists across the Muslim world, including nuclear-armed Pakistan – or are they magically supposed to elect democratic socialists and if they don’t then that was a mistake and we have to bomb them again?
(ps: the answers to your false dilemmas go here:
1) No, but bear in mind the Muslim Brotherhood formulation of democracy reads something like: “One man, one vote, one time”
2) I don’t know where you’d get that formulation, it’s obvious Mubarak isn’t interested in democracy in the slightest but how you replace him without getting someone as bad or worse is a particularly fraught question, the nuances of which don’t seem to bother you.
3) Sniping from the sidelines? You’re on a blog, dude. )
Your assumptions about my opinion are wrong.
I ‘hector’ the left because it won’t be long before the neo-cons are gone and the only group in society that might be likely to demand that dictatorships be overthrown is the left.
I’m also deeply frustrated by self-identifed left-wingers supporting, in effect old-Right policies of stability.
What do you think left-wing policy towards Egypt and Saudi Arabia should be?
Do you think dictators should be overthrown, or tolerated?
Slight problem with the “Iraq is a democracy” argument – according to a poll from the Economist, a minority or Iraqis want a democracy. The majority want either a dictator or a theocracy:
http://www.economist.com/world/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8881663
Kim, the full results of that poll are linked to in my first comment at the UK Socialist anti-war blog I linked to previously on this thread.
The more accurate comment from that poll is, as I said there:
At the moment, the opinion of those polled over the best stystem for Iraq is:
Democracy: 43%
Strong Leader: 34%
Islamic State: 22%
Since the ‘Strong Leader’ and ‘Islamic State’ options would be mutually exclusive, I see the opportunity for those who believe in democracy to isolate both sets of those who favour undeomcratic solutions, and to win.
I certainly hope that is what will happen.
The direct link to the full results of the poll, and not just media reports about the results, is here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/19_03_07_iraqpollnew.pdf (pdf file)
Comment spaminated (2 links)
Well, we can play semantics all we like, but in countries which have undergone democratisation (such as in Eastern Europe or Latin America), how many people would have indicated democracy as their preference? And you can’t get much joy from a drop in the democracy option from 57 to 43 in two years. And how many people who opt for democracy mean that in the Western sense? Your comments seem to indicate that “Western democracy” is what Iraqis want. I doubt that’s ever been the case.
How, precisely, in your view, are the COW contributing to the aims you desire?
By providing the armed forces required to keep the elected Iraqi government in power until those who violently oppose it either lay down their arms in a deal, or are defeated.
Facelift, you wrote:
Deploying the Munich analogy does your argument no good at all, as it is an analogy with a less than glorious history. Had the advice of those who cried appeasement been followed throughout the latter half of the 20th century it would have resulted in nuclear war between the US and USSR in 1962, among other unpleasant things.
You say that “time will tell if Iraq will be successfully democratised. I believe it will, and that the invasion will be proven to be right, if not totally well organised.� This is fine. You are welcome to your hope, but when your dealing in something as dangerous as geo-politics I don’t believe that we should act to try and create a better situation where a large risk of creating a worse one instead exists. I outlined the reasons why I think that the risk was large earlier in this thread.
You also wrote:
As I have made clear I in no way buy into the cheap sloganeering of “no blood for oil� but in this instance you are also wrong. Bush went into Afghanistan because the Afghan Government was harbouring an organisation which had carried out an attack on the US. Any President would have done it.
The neo-cons were totally dissatisfied with Afghanistan. As early as September 12th they were demanding that Bush go into Iraq.
Brendon:
The wrangling over the constitution proves diddly-shit. Bush could have kept the Iraqi army in place and installed a strong man. He didn’t. Fact is if Bush wanted Iraqs oil he wouldn’t have even had to do that. All he would need to do is get the sanctions lifted (its not like there were no calls for the UN to do so) and write Saddam a cheque.
And your response to the fact that a lot of the violence comes from a desire for the COW to leave is?
You seem to have simplified in your own mind a very complex situation to for and against the government. The government is not a unified entity, and nor is the motivation for a lot of the violence opposition to it.
Kim, that same poll you quote to support your own position said that 88% – a vast majority – of Iraqis reject violent attacks on Government forces. That is while a majority of them support attacks on US forces.
By taking those attitudes, Iraqis are quite clearly seeing the difference between US forces, and the elected Iraqi Government, whose legitimacy they accept.
As I’ve already quoted above (23/3 10.08pm), despite supporting attacks on them, a majority of Iraqis do not want US forces to leave until the security situation improves in some way:
That makes 63% of Iraqis who do not support immediate withdrawal of US forces.
The complexity of the situation does not hide the fact that there are really only two positions – do you support the government, or do you support those who want to destroy it? 88% of Iraqis in the poll you quote support it.
If you follow the links I’ve posted twice to the discussion at the anti-war Socialist Unity blog, you’ll see that I accept that.
I’m off to watch the footy with a mate, so replies will be delayed.
No, David, opposing violence against the government is not identical to support for the government.
Katz,
Says you! When Iraq’s actually deemed to be officially won or lost then we’ll see who supported what.
Kevin Rudd, who, I’m sure, doesn’t quite qualify as left enough for ‘Lefties like you’, but nevertheless is left of centre enough to conveniently, now, be against the action, made is clear he actually supported the removal of Saddam originally, and for basically the same reasons given by the CoW. The entire US Congress, including Democrats, supported the action, and agreed to finance it, until this week, that is, when they’ve officially shown reservations, but mainly for political reasons.
So the left was, at first, as involved, if not as, according to them, ‘blameworthy’. I know that thousands of people demonstrated against affirmative action, but, in the end, we vote in Governments and we’re all part of the programs they engage in, whether we like them or not. The people could have voted Bush, Blair or Howard out during the last elections, which were held after they’d entered Iraq, but chose to stick by them. So this is your war, your CoW, as well as ours. That’s democracy. Blame the left yanks who chose to stay home in protest or in lethargy rather than vote for Gore!
I don’t know where you got the argument that I was demanding more action from the CoW. I think you confuse your own thoughts for mine. I’ve been saying, constantly, that we need less negativity from ‘Lefties’ like you, and more agreement on a solution – agreement which has no point-scoring political bias. The left has some terrific ideas, strategists, and thinkers who could help work out a solution, but when the politics of ‘whose right and whose wrong’, and ‘I told you so’ gets in the way, the motive is warped and it becomes more expedient for there to be right-driven failure in Iraq to prove a point for head-shaking lefts, which, in my books, is a selfish way of thinking. And self-interest is what I read into your comment, ‘It’s the COW that’s losing Iraq, not the Left’.
If Iraq is lost we all lose, left and all. If Iraq is lost now, the left will have no way of bringing it back. Iraq must be won, and the left must act by bringing solutions to the table and find agreement with the right. But you want to wash your hands of involvement, which just tells me that you have no heart or sense of urgency for the people who are caught in the firing line, civilian or military. If that’s your line, and the line of lefties like you (I don’t think they’re all like you, actually), then history will paint a callous picture of your reaction to the ME crisis, and more importantly, your willingness to help.
So, given that this is a difficult situation, and we’re in it, left or not, what do you suggest we do to rescue Iraq? Can the left (that is, your kind of left) be selfless enough to not want to prove how right they are so much that they’ll pitch in with a few positive ideas? Or are you waiting for failure to prove your point? What have you got, Katz?
Exactly.
The Economist puts its finger on the reasons why “supporting the government” vs. being anti-democratic is a gross over-simplification, let alone assuming that the government is in fact democratic:
And:
Aside from his predilection for opinion polls (which already act to obscure complexity and ambiguity), David makes a fatal mistake in assuming that there is a “government” which is separate from the interests of militias and Shiites who want total domination. There just isn’t. The few within it who appear genuinely committed in some degree to any sort of proper state formation are Kurds, who, ironically, are probably only acting in this way to shore up American support for the quasi-independence of their own region.
I’m sorry, FaceLift, but it is the COW that’s losing Iraq, not the left.
David might go on with some Last Superpower meme about war cabinets, but it’s actually up to those in power to make decisions. All we can do is react, and agitate. The most sensible way forward, it seems to me, is to support the nuanced plans advanced by Congressional Democrats which combine graduated withdrawal with incentives for the Iraqis to come to a political solution. If, in the final analysis, the place turns out to have become a horrendous mess, the moral and political responsibility lies squarely with Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, etc.
Indeed.
Facelift you talk about solutions but the truth is that some problems just dont have solutions and that we are never going to be any good at all at trying to solve all but the simplest problems of a country on the other side of the world. I mean it can be hard to figure out what makes an Australian tick (hence this is always a contentious matter of discussion), do you really think we can figure out how Iraq works to the degree required to not make it even worse in the process of implementing our solution.
FaceLift, I can’t improve on my answer to an almost identical question from DJ, on this thread, 24 March 7.25 am. (See above.)
I endorse recent sentiments of Kim and Chris.
Chris:
Chris,
I don’t think you understand how I look at it. Bush doesn’t want to buy Iraqi oil on behalf of America. That isn’t how it works.
The oil comapanies do. And they don’t want to buy it off Iraq, either. They want to own the wells themselves. And sell it to themselves..LOL
Wrangling over the Constitution is central to the whole racket. What the hell is a foriegn country writing someone else’s constitution for in the first place?! Why on earth are the Americans allowed to specifically write into the Constitution specifics on how Iraq’s natural resources are to be shared between the country and overseas companies?
Yes, yes. I know how its written up in the western media: the oil draft law is all a big debate on how the Iraqis will share the wealth amongst themselves. Its a shell game. The real issue of foriegn private control is hidden. Shh, we aren’t allowed to talk about that.
In my post that replied to you asking me to provide evidence that the Iraq invasion was about oil, I gave you a chronological history of the lead up to the Iraqi elections. That you have not specifically replied to that makes me conclude you agree with what I wrote, that Bush was never all that interested in democracy in Iraq.
The U.S. did turn up with “strongmen” to shoehorn into the leadership. But a problem arose:
The State Department wanted Allawi, otherwise known as Saddam-lite. The neocons and the Pentagon wanted Chalabi. But neither of them had any support at all within Iraq’s power structure that was formed after Saddam’s ouster. The “strongman” idea faltered because once again the Yanks thought they could create reality, and also because they couldn’t even make up their minds on who should be the “strongman”.
You only have to read the early post-invasion quotes of neocons like Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld to see out of touch with reality they were. That they bungled this is no surprise.
Its not about the state of America buying oil from Iraq, like when you say “…and write Saddam a cheque”. Its about private investors using public resources to plunder the world’s resources. At the turn of the previous century it was British investors using British soldiers and British wealth to plunder South Africa for gold and diamonds. The more things change the more they stay the same, and all that.
Its about the Bush government using the American military machine to get their PRIVATE OIL COMPANY BUDDIES into Iraq controlling the oil wells. It isn’t in America’s national interests one bit. Never was. These people are crooks.
It wasn’t about WMDs. It wasn’t about democracy. And as you say, Iraqi oil was always availble. America already controls the world’s shipping lanes. So there was no strategic imperative.
So what’s left? Elementary.
David Jackmanson Says:
Dude, that’s always been the case. Learn some history.
No, it wasn’t the best way. Those people were already pissed off. The best way was to piss off even more people, which is what the loyal Bushies have done.
This is really, really stupid.
It’s a bait and switch. The US supports oppressive governments, so the solution is to change the goverment in a country, Iraq, that the US hasn’t supported for sixteen years, while doing nothing about what even you concede is the real problem.
You’re just making this shit up as you go.
So you completely reject the idea that there are people in the Government who want a democratic solution? You think that everyone in the Government supports Shia extremism? I can’t see any other way to read this statement.
I think otherwise. I think that the Government is divided between those who support Shia extremists, and those who want to stop the violence that is driven by Shia extremisim.
That result will only happen if the people in Iraq see both Shia and Sunni death squads brought under control, so they feel that it is safe to rely on the Iraqi police etc instead of their own militia.
That is the declared aim of the current security operation in Iraq. I hope it succeeds.
Opposing violence against the government is the same as effectively supporting the government in its war against those who would destroy it, which is the crucial issue in Iraq today.
So do you therefore reject the stories that the BBC etc, who commissioned this poll, are transmitting based on its results? Do you think those stories, with their constant doom and gloom about Iraq’s future are ‘acting to obscure complexity and ambiguity’, or not?
The ‘incentives’ to Iraq in the plans put forward by the Demcratic Party are, in effect, the same as the ‘incentives’ offered to workfare
victimsclients: “You’d better get your act together, or we’ll cut you off”.Any plan for withdrawal that is based on a date, instead of specific political objectives, is a bad one, and should, I think, be rejected by anyone who wants to see the Iraqi Government win its current war.
I’ve never actually used the term ‘war cabinet’ myself. I’d have thought you’d be aware of the cheapness of trying to paint opposing views as a ‘hivemind’.
What I do support about LS, however, is the idea that political activists – not just revolutionaries, but anyone – should at least try to think very clearly about what policies they would follow if they were in power – the way that the social democrat Kevin Rudd is doing right now, although he is not yet in power.
For instance, what support would you propose to offer popular oppositions in Iran and Egypt, both countries with dictatorships that are fast losing any legitimacy at all?
Again with the dichotomies, David!
What evidence do you have for this? What you “think”? Who are the people in the government who want to stop the violence? From which parties do they come? Who isn’t aligned to a militia?
No, I think that many of those stories are based on informed reportage, not misreadings of opinion polls and ideology.
I could have sworn! Apologies. But same diff, really, isn’t it? And us blog commenters aren’t pollies. Kevin Rudd is leader of Her Maj’s Opposition. We’re blog commenters.
I’ve answered your question previously.
David Jackmanson,
I’m interested as to why you think that the Bush admin seriously had a plan to create a genuine independent sovereign state in Iraq.
There is no evidence for it. Where are the statements prior to the invasion from Bush demanding that Saddam step down, and a genuine UN controlled national election with a strong U.S. presence to make sure there was no hanky panky?
Today there are checkpoints, raids, bombings, curfews, foriegn soldiers on street corners, prison camps, torture…etc going on in Iraq. All Bush policy outcomes that were started off the day Baghdad was taken. Under Saddam there could never be real free and fair elections. And by that standard, neither could it be under the Bush occupation.
When you ask people that they “should at least try to think very clearly about what policies they would follow if they were in power”, its important to find out what they think is actually happening. You write the script of the Bush Admin actually really trying to to impose democracy in Iraq, then you imply you agree that it is failing, and you aske for suggestions.
Here is how I think it happened. The Bush Admin wanted control over Iraq’s oil resources to hand it to private companies. Where does the power reside? In the people. The rest of the world will only accept this. The task is to gain that power. Promise the world and the Iraqi people that you will hold free and fair elections. Now the power is handed over to the newly formed Iraqi Parliament!
Create an atmosphere of turbulence by your military presence. No reconstruction means no electricity, no water, no employment, and plenty of discontent. Create enemies like Zarqawi. Zarqawi comes in handy when you want to bomb places like Fallujah. Zarqawi is everywhere. Keep the population in a state of fear. Hold the government behind the Green Zone and get them to sign the papers that will be used for decades to wave about saying your pals own the oil.
David, if you can agree on that as a possible starting point, then I’ll tell you my policies for the future.
Brendon, do you also believe the moon landings were faked?
No one created Ahmad Fadil Al-Khalailah but his parents.
So let me get this straight?
Bush has deliberatley maintained the state of disaster in Iraq which has ruined and discredited both his Presidency and the ideas associated with it so that, what, some oil companies can make few bob?
Wow. The things that we discover when we postulate an economic explanation for everything.
Chris,
I find it interesting that you don’t acknowledge that it wasn’t really about WMDs, and you don’t argue that events immediately after the invasion (as I outlined) state Bush was not really interested in creating an independent sovereign democratic state in Iraq.
If you cancel out those two possible motives, whats left.
But you find the idea of the invasion boiling down to grubby motives too much.
As for creating a state of turbulence to get what they want, why is that so far-fetched? At this point in time when Iraq is in a state of civil war, Bush is demanding a weakened, vulnerable Iraqi government sign on the dotted line and hand over the vast majority of their resources to the oil comnpanies.
It seems I have reality on my side when putting that case.
Where is your sovereign democratic Iraqi government that would prove yours? The country is still under American occupation.
Its very, very simple. The state of turbulence has undermined Bush’s domestic support and the domestic support of his party. To believe this shaggy dog story of yours one would have to believe that Bush decided in 2002 that he wanted to be a failed President, and indeed be in the running for worst President ever. If you think he made that decision you are beyond deluded.
Now in 1998 Paul Wolfowitz proposed to congress that the US create a state or a protected zone along the lines of the Kurdish one in the north in the Shiite dominated south of Iraq. This also happens to be where all the oil is. Bush could have done this in 2002 and been home and hosed long ago and got his hands on TEH OIL as part of the bargain. He didn’t. Instead he went into Baghdad and Anbar, which are the areas now causing him problems. Now if he really just wanted TEH OIL why did he do that?
Chris,
Baghdad was where the political power was. In order to get control of the oil, he had to get political power. He has it.
The country is in a state of turbulence. Bush is demanding the Maliki government to sign over their oil resources to the oil companies. Why is this so hard for you to get?
Your argument is why would Bush do all this if he could foresee how messy it would be and that his Presidency would be in tatters.
Well, what was Bush’s plan according to you that was put into place but that he did not foresee the future? Don’t give me their rhetoric. Give me their money, troops, and policy that proves it.
Are you really saying that Bush went to Iraq with wooly headed ideas of democracy?
I’m sure Bush and his neocon pals did not forsee how bad this would end up. But they are in the bunker with nowhere else to go.
Everything I said before has today’s reality stamped all over it.
steve at the pub:
Nah. Never.
Do you still believe in Mobile Weapon Labs?
Yep. That is what I am saying. I am saying it because I like my history based on sources rather than unfalsifiable conspiratorial mumblings about what they are really up to. At the time of the invasion of Iraq we have a great deal of talk from the Bush Administration about WMD. The problem with this is that those sources that detail what was happening inside the Administration (and I stress detail, they do not speculate, they come from people who were there) show that the neocons wanted to go after Saddam regardless. The Bush Administrations talk after the WMDs failed to turn up also goes nicely with these sources, as do the tenets of neoconservative ideology.
The Bush Administrations actions upon entering Iraq also ad weight to the case. We know the WMD hunt was initially poorly organized and under-resourced (see Woodward, State of Denial) and that through de-Baathification and demilitarization Bush totally demolished the old Iraqi state. Now I take the view that Bush did this because he believed that democracy was the natural order of things and it would arrive on the scene if he could just wipe the slate clean. Brendon thinks that Bush deliberately created a state of anarchy in Iraq to try and keep the Government dependent on the US, even though leaving the army in place and finding someone within willing to be a US client would be a much easier way to achieve both political control and economic control.
Apparently Bush aimed to:
Then I pointed out that to do this on purpose would be an act of domestic political suicide for Bush and his ideas. And what do you know, Brendon changed his tune!
Now “Bush and his neocon pals did not forsee how bad this would end up. But they are in the bunker with nowhere else to go.�
Well either they did it on purpose or they didn’t. You can’t have your cake and eat it to Brendon.
I also pointed out that there was a plan that would have allowed Bush to secure the oil without the trouble which you claim was, of course, engineered so that he could get his hands on the oil. The plan came from none other than Bush’s Undersecretary of Defense. So why couldn’t separating of the south work for a President after oil but not looking to prove any point in particular?
Well. “Baghdad was where the political power was. In order to get control of the oil, he had to get political power. He has it.�
No. Baghdad was where the Sunni dictatorship was. If Bush had of separated the oil rich south from the oil-free and troublesome Sunni triangle the political power would not have been in Baghdad. It wouldn’t have been anywhere and Bush could have put it in any damn place he chose.
So this isn’t a refutation at all. Bush wanted Baghdad. He didn’t need it to get the oil, but he did if he wanted Saddam’s head and a democratic Iraq.
Chris, you start with this:
And you end with this:
Chris,
There is nothing in your post in between these these two sentences to back up what you claim. Nowhere do you offer any proof that Bush was any more serious about democracy than he was about WMDs as the reason. All you offer is a bunch of unfalsifiable conspiratorial mumblings already spread countlessly by neocon shills about what they are really up to.
You claim that the underfunded WMD search program implies they weren’t serious about WMDs.
But when it comes to your theory that Bush really actually did it for democracy You offer nothing. For instance, there no verifiable full and open democratic election plans prior to the invasion from the U.S. government. No organized election monitoring plans set up prior to the invasion from the U.S. government. It was not the stated reason for the invasion. Bush did not offer not to invade if Saddam left and free and fair elections were held. No nothing. And you can’t provide any evidence of your theory because it wasn’t there. So where did you pick this kooky conspiracy theory up that Bush did it for democracy? Because he told you, maybe?
BTW, neoconservative Straussian philosophy does not support democracy like you say it does. Its an elitist philosophy that champions “perpetual deception between the rulers and the ruled” [Drury]. Sure, get ‘em out to vote. Democracy is great. But they better get it right, or else! Just ask the Palestinians.
It was Sistani that forced the democratic elections, as I posted and provided sources for, but for which you did not reply or counter. Because you can’t. Here it is again:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/03/19/four-more-years/#comment-356162
If you can’t refute that, then the theory that it was all for democracy is a crock… like the WMD reason.
Which leaves us with what? Hmmmm
Chris:
Chris,
that is a big claim. I can’t evalulate your source for this statement, as you don’t provide one. I assume its just a hunch you have.
It sounds like you think Bush had some sort of religious moment where he just reckoned democracy is the natural order of things: bomb a few cities, kill off the leadership, and occupy the country with 150,000 troops and nearly as many private mercenaries (AKA “security people”), and blessed democracy will surely follow.
Good grief.
Finally, this from the Washington Post, fully six months AFTER the invasion:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A17507-2003Nov27?language=printer
Now, it hardly sounds from that that the invasion motive was to hold free and fair elections. Especially, if after six months it dawns on a “scrambling” U.S. government that they better organize an election, or face a Shiite uprising. I would not liked to have been the one who had to explain that Bush.