One of the things I’d like to see is an intelligent gospel-related discussion on Iraq and Iran that does not fall into predictable partisanship, Bush-bashing and/or Harry Reid-bashing.
Is it possible?
Here are some assumptions to form this debate:
1)The United States given its unique role as the lone superpower since about 1989 will be engaged with the world one way or another. And even if the United States is not engaged, some of its enemies will force it to become engaged. With this later point, I am referring mostly to the many Islamist attacks on United States assets since 1979 and the U.S. Embassy takeover in Iran. In the 1990s, there were the attacks on U.S. Embassies in Africa, the U.S.S. Cole attack and of course Sept. 11. My point is that any argument that says, “let’s disengage from the world and the world will leave us alone” is basically not realistic and certainly ahistorical.
2)Given that the United States must be engaged in some way (or will be forced to become engaged), what is the right thing to do from a gospel perspective? What I mean by this is, how can foreign policy be affected by the gospel to do both A) what is right in protecting the United States and B)what is morally right in the short and long term?
3)In the Middle East we face two difficult issues from a strategic and moral standpoint: 1)we are involved in a war in Iraq today where the roll of the United States military is primarily to prevent widespread slaughter and greater death and 2)we are faced with an implacable enemy (Iran) that has openly declared war on us since 1979 that is on the brink of getting nuclear weapons. In the case of 2), even if we don’t believe a Shiite-dominated Iran could fire nuclear weapons on the United States, their acquisition would certainly destabilize the region, causing Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab states to feel they also need nuclear weapons.
4)Recent history has shown us that very often the only thing that brings lasting peace is complete victory over enemies followed by generosity and the buildup of democracy so that the defeated people choose a better route for themselves. I’m thinking specifically here of Germany, Japan and Italy in the post World War II era. I’m also thinking of eastern bloc countries that were involved in a Cold War in which the bad guys lost and the people for the most part chose peace, democracy and capitalism.
5)At the same time, the Book of Mormon shows us that over time the defeat of enemies is only temporary and that the only thing that effects real change is the enemies’ conversion to the Gospel. I’m thinking specifically here of the great missionary efforts by Alma the Younger and the sons of Mosiah who were able to turn implacable foes like the Lamanites into peace-loving followers of Christ. What, if anything at all, does this example have to do with the modern situation in the Middle East? Is there anything we can learn from that?
These are the things I sit thinking about when I get through being depressed about foreign policy these days. You’ll notice my thoughts try to avoid partisanship and bashing of modern-day politicians and instead try to concentrate on real solutions. I hope this discussion can foster a similar spirit.
1.) While I think China’s extreme rise in purchasing power (It is estimated by some that it will supercede the US by 2010) takes away the US’s position as a “lone super power” as well as the Globalization of industry, the US can not disengage from the world. It is not an economically viable option. Perhaps we need to stop engaging the world as “the lone superpower” and engage it as a brother.
Sorry, no, Geoff, an intelligent discussion is not possible, because there is no common agreement about the factual basis for discussion. What some see as trying to understand the pathologies that have led to the current fiasco, you and others see as partisan bashing. I note also that your points 3.1 and 3.2, which you take as the basis for an intelligent discussion, are disputed assertions already colored by a particular rhetorical tendency (i.e. stating that we have been at war with Iran since 1979). I’m sure you can have a pleasant discussion with those who already agree on these points, but that is a political rather than a religious/LDS community. So no, among Mormons, there is no basis for intelligent discussion. Sorry.
“CLINTON: Good evening.
Earlier today, I ordered America’s armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.
The hard fact is that so long as Saddam remains in power, he threatens the well-being of his people, the peace of his region, the security of the world.
The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government — a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people.”
President Clinton
Oval Office Address to the American People
December 16, 1998
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/transcripts/clinton.html
Jonathan, I’m sure you’ll agree that this subject is pretty complex. Any attempt to frame the debate is going to be filled with potential errors. I’m open to you re-framing the debate in different ways. What I simply don’t want is the typical back and forth — Bush is an idiot, no Clinton got us here — that you see in most of these discussions. If you’d like to take a stab at telling my why you don’t agree with my number 3), I’d welcome it. Thanks.
#1, privacy, how would you do what you suggest, ie, engage the world as a brother?
Back to the original topic.
1) I agree the US is the lone superpower. China is hype. US businesses hype China as their new market. A billion people! Yahoo! Never mind China’s economy is somewhere near California’s in size.
2) I think the correct thing to do is pretty broad in this sense. I think it is easy to justify policing the world on the justification of “since we can help we should try”. I think it is easy to justify not policing the world based on “just because we can help doesn’t mean it will help”
3) President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad main target seems to be Israel and Zionists. I am all for helping Israel out.
4) I do not think we can ever justify that much destruction in the realm of policing the world.
5) I think any nation where freedom of religion is not a right is fair game. The people are repressed and deserve better. It’s easy to justify “helping” out our fellowman in this case.
I also think it is easy to justify “helping” our fellowman when the rights and treatment of women are below a certain standard.
I think Mormonism benefits more from a stable world, since it allows us to put out more missionaries. How you get stability is an open question.
It’s possible that this means Mormonism benefits more from a USA which maintains peace and the status quo, even at the expense of justice and human rights.
Or it’s possible that propping up repressive regimes simply allows the wound to fester until you’ve got a life-threatening illness on your hands and the totalitarians implode with catastrophic results. Perhaps the USA would be better served to allow small upheavals now rather than face cataclysmic revolutions later. Perhaps Mormonism would benefit as well.
Which is it?
Beats me.
Geoff,
The problem from the very outset of your discussion is that what you see as US “engagement” with the world, many in the world see as imperialistic design. You correctly point out the attacks on US embassies, but fail to point out the huge destruction that the US has wrought on the rest of the world in the same period.
You point out the US embassy takeover in Iran, but fail to recognize the US role in overthrowing a popular government in the 50’s that led to the dreadful reign of the Shah, which Shah, after being overthrown, was sheltered in the US. The US refused extradition of the Shah for his many crimes and murders, which led to the anger in Iran that feuled the embassy takeover. The whole thing started with the US “engagement” in the world from the beginning.
#7 As far as a stable world goes, I agree. However, you need to keep in mind these words from the Lord:
D&C 45:
69 And there shall be gathered unto it out of every nation under heaven; and it shall be the only people that shall not be at war one with another.
70 And it shall be said among the wicked: Let us not go up to battle against Zion, for the inhabitants of Zion are terrible; wherefore we cannot stand.
71 And it shall come to pass that the righteous shall be gathered out from among all nations, and shall come to Zion, singing with songs of everlasting joy.
regarding #5, the answer is “with Tolerance and a willingness to listen to different points of view.” how to pull this off? If I knew that. I’d run for office, we are talking about the five dysfunctions of a Team at an international level.
Geoff,
You can have a good healthy debate about politics.
First of all, let’s clear up who attacked who here, because if we are to “know our enemies” then we must be clear on who has attacked us and why. As such, we can respond accordingly and appropriately so we don’t expand destruction and death beyond what is necessary.
The US Embassy bombings in Africa were done by Al-Qaida, not Iran, but the way you phrase your statement, you make it sound like the Iranians are the “Islamists” behind all these attacks. They are not. In fact all three of your examples of the United States being attacked are done by Al-Qaida and not Iran. Why are you attempting to link those attacks to Iran when the evidence does not support such an accusation?
Finally, you bring up the Islamic revolution of 1979 and the taking of hostages at our embassy in Tehran. To understand why they did this, what do you know about Operation Ajax?
The United States, as the world’s superpower must remain engaged with the world around her. What is the right thing to do from a gospel perspective? Well, this gets tricky, because most of our interaction in the Middle East has to do with the shady business of oil. We have some very morally questionable relationships in the Middle East with nations that, well, we probably normally wouldn’t. What is the right thing to do? Stop our support of dictatorships in the Middle East. Stop our support of these very corrupt governments in Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Let the people of each country decide for themselves and let the chips fall where they may. Isn’t that the point of 1) democracies, and 2) life on this earth? For the United States to protect itself well, it must stop aggressive warfare and focus on defensive warfare instead. We have great moral power in diplomacy if we get people on board who know how to use it.
As examples, in the Book of Mormon, you find there are no examples where the righteous Nephites went into Lamanite lands to attempt to overthrow the king simply because they felt threatened by him. Always they waited until the Lamanites attacked, and even then, they never entered Lamanite lands. They simply repelled the Lamanites out of the Nephites’ lands.
There are some serious problems here with both Iran and Iraq. First of all, to say that the military is “primarily [there] to prevent widespread slaughter and greater death” while employing the very means that brings about death is a contradiction in terms. We’re killing people in order to prevent killings. Nothing in that makes sense, and there’s your reason why Iraq is so unstable and violent right now. The only solution that will placate the violence in Iraq is a political solution, not a military solution.
Secondly, Iran has not “openly declared war on us since 1979.” Thirdly, they are not “implacable.” In fact, in 2003, they offered quite strong concessions in order to bring about a dialog between their nation and ours. I’m going to get partisan here, but I have to. Bush and Cheney scoffed at that offer, dismissed it, and guess what, two years later Iranians voted for a hardliner. Please be more realistic about the situation with Iran, Geoff. They are not openly at war with us. If they were, well, let’s say that the number of Americans dead would be far higher, the number of Iraqis dead would be far higher, and the number of Iranians dead would be far higher.
On this issue, a question needs to be asked. Do you believe there can be any kind of compromise with Iran? Can the United States compromise any of its positions vis a vis Iran? Because let me tell you right now, if it cannot, then there will never be peace in the Middle East, and the heart of the problem of this lack of peace will not be Iran, but the United States.
That is not a very accurate assessment of recent history over what brings “lasting peace” most especially because, well, the world is not in “lasting peace” and as we know from scriptures, we’re in a phase of “wars and rumors of wars.” But your point 4 is an attempt to justify a “complete victory over enemies,” which is a very intractable and implacable position for one to take, especially one in a position as America is in, as the world’s superpower. When the world’s strongest power advocates “complete victory” over “diplomacy” that nation sends a message to the rest of the world that the best option for all nations to take is “complete victory.” Now, can all nations take this option? No, it is impossible. Two nations at war with each other cannot have “complete victory” over each other (unless you consider the Jaredites’s ending as complete victory, where both sides got each other to finally be well…dead).
As for the Eastern Europe bloc and the Cold War, there was no “complete victory” over the enemy during this period. What brought about peace during the Cold War in Eastern Europe was a peaceful revolution (with the exception of Romania). Where was the “complete victory” you are referring to? All I saw was Reagan and Gorbachev meeting diplomatically to create treaties. This is not “complete victory” but “diplomacy.”
Do not justify total war over an enemy by a lack of understanding of history. This will lead only to your destruction.
The lesson to learn here is that we’ve pushed off any possibility of converting Middle Easterners to the Gospel further away by our military adventures in their countries.
addrax,
Was that an attempt to diminish China’s economy? California’s economy is the fifth largest in the world. That’s not a bad position for China’s economy vis a vis their growth. The fact is that China is asserting itself economically in the world in ways that many Americans don’t see.
I think many of the comments that are made here are good in the abstract but difficult to put into practice. How do you deal with tolerance with Iran, which has financed anti-U.S. activities (and, yes, has in effect declared war on the United States) since 1979? One way of doing this is withdrawing from the world as Curtis in #8 and many, many scriptures seem to suggest. But at the same time, withdrawing from the world does not guarantee you won’t be attacked (witness 9/11). And it doesn’t guarantee you will be doing the right thing. For example, is it better to withdraw from the world rather than engage and prevent genocide? You could make a strong argument that the U.S. could have made a “peace” agreement with Japan and Germany in, say, 1938, basically drawing up three spheres of influence — Germany gets Europe and Africa, Japan gets Asia and the U.S. gets the Americas — and Hitler and Tojo would have signed that agreement in a second. But meanwhile the United States stands by and watches millions upon millions to be massacred. Is that the “right” thing to do?
I think if we look at our world today, there are many things that are the right thing to do in terms of foreign policy, and most of them involve engaging the world and shouldering our burden as a superpower. Yes, it means we will have enemies (such as the mullahs of Iran). But it would be even worse to allow the world to fall to pieces around us.
One small point about Iran that I think is fascinating: there are many people today who call for the U.S. to return to a Realpolitik policy in the Middle East and elsewhere because Iraq has been such a disaster. Well, it was Realpolitik that caused us to support the Shah in Iran for so many years. And that brought us the mullahs, who as Curtis points out hate us today. So much for Realpolitik.
Geoff,
With your very loose definition of “declared war” I guess the United States “declared open war” on Iran when it overthrew the democratically elected government back in the 1950s, and as such 1979 was just a continuation of our aggressive “war” against Iran from the 1950s.
And just what was that overthrow of a democratically elected government over? Oil of course. British Petroleum, petulant that the Iranians nationalized their oil, complained to the British Prime Minister who went to Eisenhower and said “do this for us.” Eisenhower meekly obeyed and ordered the CIA to overthrow the government.
Geoff one huge problem I have with current government policy in light of the gospel is that we do not negotiate with the very people we are in conflict with. Can that be justified.
Dan, I love the fact that you put so much time and effort and thought into your comments. I can’t possibly respond to all of your points, but I would like to respond to this because it gets to the heart of my post:
“The United States, as the world’s superpower must remain engaged with the world around her. What is the right thing to do from a gospel perspective? Well, this gets tricky, because most of our interaction in the Middle East has to do with the shady business of oil. We have some very morally questionable relationships in the Middle East with nations that, well, we probably normally wouldn’t. What is the right thing to do? Stop our support of dictatorships in the Middle East. Stop our support of these very corrupt governments in Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Let the people of each country decide for themselves and let the chips fall where they may. Isn’t that the point of 1) democracies, and 2) life on this earth? For the United States to protect itself well, it must stop aggressive warfare and focus on defensive warfare instead. We have great moral power in diplomacy if we get people on board who know how to use it.”
I think this is an area where we can even muster up some agreement. In a general sense, I believe in democracy and I believe in letting people decide how to govern themselves. There are a few examples that are worth considering, however. The first is Iran, where there is no doubt the Mullahs were popular in 1979. But of course they started a reign of terror that lasts until today, and of course they canceled any real democracy (in the sense of allowing the people to choose between the Mullahs and a completely different type of government). In 1991, it looked like the FIS, the Islamist group in Algeria, was going to win elections there. In early 1992, the government canceled the elections because there was strong evidence the FIS would turn Algeria into another Iran. And most Western governments (democracies) breathed a sigh of relief. So, in the Middle East, democracy can often go in unexpected directions. I still think you have to allow democracy to flourish and hope that eventually it will work out.
That, by the way, is exactly what Neoconservatives have been arguing for years and the principle reason why I supported the Iraq invasion.
As for defensive vs. offensive wars, I think there is no doubt that the BoM clearly points out that defensive wars are the only acceptable armed conflicts from a moral standpoint. But, if you take that viewpoint to its logical extreme, the United States would only be involved in wars where it was attacked. That would mean, in the 20th century, only attacking Japan (not Germany) and al Qaeda. Remember, we declared war on Germany after Pearl Harbor. You could argue that our only beef was with Japan. Well, that would have been a bit of a disappointment for the British, the French and certainly Europe’s Jews.
I’m not convinced that in the modern era only defensive wars are justified or morally correct.
Geoff #12
I don’t think that 9/11 happened as a result of, or in a time of US withdrawal from the world. In fact, 9/11 happened at a time when we had our infidel military bases in Saudi Arabia, the Holy land of Islam. We didn’t withdraw our military from that area after the first Gulf War, and I believe that probably has a lot to do with the reason the US is attacked in many instances.
As far as the Realpolitik policy goes, I think that Mossadegh’s plan to nationalize the oil industry had a lot to do with the US sponsored coup against him too.
Clark I’ve read at least one commentator who said the spark that ignited Iran was actually Carter’s withdrawal of support for the Shah on human rights grounds (which he did just prior to the civil unrest that culminated in the overthrow of the Shah).
It’s entirely possible that if the US had not signaled the Shah’s weakness like that, the revolution would have been stillborn, and Iran would have continued on much like Saudi Arabia has – not exactly a model of democracy and enlightened rule, but stable nonetheless.
But who knows for sure?
It occurs to me that I should take some time to explain my point 3 above regarding Iraq.
This partly answers Dan in #10.
Take a step back in Iraq. Put away your Bush/Cheney hatred. Let’s pretend the troops there are French troops sent by Chirac. What will happen when all these Frenchies leave?
Well, they will go back to France and their families will be quite happy to have them back. But what will happen to the people of Iraq?
I think we all can agree it will be a bloodbath. Shiites against Sunnis against Kurds. You can argue that it is all Chirac’s fault for invading Iraq in the first place, but that doesn’t change the actual situation on the ground.
So, speaking purely from a humanitarian/moral perspective, the existence of all these French troops is primarily a police action. They are kind of like Officer Krumpke in “West Side Story” trying to prevent the Sharks and the Jets from going at each other’s throats. And we all know what happened when Officer Krumpke went off duty.
There’s already significant evidence of Iranian and Syrian involvement in Iraq. Each side is arming its favorite thugs. So, what happens in the region when the Frenchies are no longer there? The fighting goes regional, and Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other countries could easily get involved. What a mess.
So, regardless of the past, today, “we are involved in a war in Iraq today where the roll of the United States military (ie, French military) is primarily to prevent widespread slaughter and greater death.” That is the point I was trying to make.
Geoff,
Robert Dreyfuss would disagree with you on the violence you predict following a US withdrawal here:
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/48186/
Also, a quite livid Iraqi has this to say to those who would say we have a responsibility to be there to protect the peace… or kill the killers:
“If the Americans leave, they will take the murderous rabble – see above – they brought with them.
The death squads they trained and implanted in our midst would be hunted down and killed.
Jaafary and Maliki and all the Daawa dogs would be hunted down.
Millions of Iraqis – Shia and Sunni – would descend on Baghdad and rid it of the scum the US planted there.
A period of initial chaos would follow. Then reconciliation.
Then Iraqis would go about fixing what the Americans couldn’t – and not have to steal $18 billion because the US coffers were running empty thanks to the dog in the White House.
Please, withdraw your raping horde of an army.”
I suspect that there is no gospel-based solution to nation-level conflicts. The gospel teaches me that Amedinejad is my brother in exactly the same measure as President Hinckley is my brother, and that I should treat him with the same level of love, respect, compassion, and esteem that I treat President Hinckley. Similarly, the gospel teaches me that I should permit no distinction of race, nationality, gender, or otherwise to interfere with my love, respect, compassion, and esteem for the people you refer to. Finally, as I am to love my neighbor as myself, I should not prefer my own wealth, safety, comfort or security over that of my sisters and brothers in Iran.
As D&C 121 continually reminds us, notions of dominion, retaliation, conquest, defeat, and the like are the notions of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority as they suppose. Not of God. Until we engage with others on the basis of persuasion, long suffering, kindness, meekness, and love unfeigned, we haven’t any possibility of finding a gospel-based solution to the problems you identify.
Instead, we’re like Mullah Nasruddin in the story:
Nasruddin was found by his neighbor looking in the street for something.
“What are you looking for,” asked the neighbor.
“I’m looking for my key,” said Nasrudin.
“Where did you lose it?”
“In my basement.”
“Then why are you looking for it here?”
“The light is better here.”
Geoff,
#18,
Interesting that you chose the French. We actually have a case of what has happened when the French have withdrawn from a country they attempted to…what’s the best word? Rule? Direct? Colonize? It all comes down to imposing their will upon the locals. And no, the result when they left was not a bloodbath. No, we do not all agree that the result would be a bloodbath. That’s the fear. but fear is not necessarily reality.
Note also that while Officer Krumpke was ever present, the hatred between the Jets and the Sharks never ceased, but it took the death of Tony and Maria’s confrontation of Chino in order to get the two sides to actually work together. Note that the cops failed utterly in their attempts to placate the two sides.
There is a reason why few nations are foolish enough to try to intervene in civil wars.
Seems to me that section 98 of the D&C pretty much says everything that needs to be said on the subject:
11 And I give unto you a commandment, that ye shall forsake all evil and cleave unto all good, that ye shall live by every word which proceedeth forth out of the mouth of God.
12 For he will give unto the faithful line upon line, precept upon precept; and I will try you and prove you herewith.
13 And whoso layeth down his life in my cause, for my name’s sake, shall find it again, even life eternal.
14 Therefore, be not afraid of your enemies, for I have decreed in my heart, saith the Lord, that I will prove you in all things, whether you will abide in my covenant, even unto death, that you may be found worthy.
15 For if ye will not abide in my covenant ye are not worthy of me.
16 Therefore, renounce war and proclaim peace, and seek diligently to turn the hearts of the children to their fathers, and the hearts of the fathers to the children;
Good luck to all those who will someday find themselves in the unfortunate position of trying to justify to the Lord the decisions they made to take this nation to war and thereby cause the unnecessary deaths and dismemberments of hundreds of thousands of His children, regardless of the nation of their citizenship. Now that the Lord has commanded us to “renounce war”, who are we to argue any kind of justification that would allow us to do the contrary?
I think we all can agree it will be a bloodbath.
What numeric threshold have we not yet achieved so that the daily slaughter already taking place can not be termed a “bloodbath”?
I think Mark N in #22 makes the kind of point that I struggle with every day. I believe we are intended to renounce war and proclaim peace. I certainly try to do that in my personal life. But then we have so many examples in the scriptures of righteous leaders who were also military leaders (Capt Moroni, Nephi, Mormon, Moroni, King Benjamin, Moses, Abraham, David and on and on). So, maybe the rule is only that defensive war is justified. Well, then what do you say about WWII in Europe, which was not a defensive war for the United States? Were we correct to fight it or not?
Unfortunately, the real world is much more complex than the pacifist (and I mean that in a good sense because I consider myself a pacifist in many ways) comments here would indicate.
As for whether or not our leaving Iraq would be a bloodbath or not, I would just like to leave a few links.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4738472.stm
http://www.slate.com/id/2159936/
I have no crystal ball. It seems to me that I would hope that if we were to leave Iraq right now it would become more peaceful. But I think that history indeed shows the exact opposite. Vietnam and Cambodia are good examples, but there are many others where the evacuation of strong central authority leads to more deaths, and many unnecessary deaths. I wouldn’t like to have that on my conscience either.
And as a follow up to #24, I would like to point out that the United States is engaged in the world whether it wants to be or not. And what I mean by this is that leaving an unstable Iraq does not mean the Iraqi groups will leave the United States alone. Certainly, it might not be a bad idea to leave Iraq to take on the re-born Taliban/al Qaeda threat in Afghanistan. But the reality is that an Iraq without a U.S. presence would quickly become another Afghanistan plotting new attacks against the United States. So, we would find ourselves going back to Iraq to pacify new terrorist threats pretty quickly.
The world can be a scary and complicated place sometimes.
Geoff,
Actually World War II was a defensive fight. It was not the United States that declared war first on either Germany or Japan. Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor and then declared war on us. Germany, in their pact with Japan, followed suit and declared war on us. We then declared war on both Japan and Germany. As such, they took first blood, and were the aggressors. After that, the war becomes defensive, in that you fight do push your enemy back.
Can, #21, so I can officially note that your position is the United States should not be involved in Darfur or any future Rwanda-type genocide activities because it’s “foolish” to get involved in civil wars?
Call me a naive idealist, but what it seems to me we really lack in foreign policy is more of the golden rule. We don’t respect the rights and opinions of other nations. Our government does much that we think only happens with other governments. We have a long history of doing underhanded things to protect our interests. (i.e. preventing Venezuela from putting down a revolt in Panama by strategic stationing of our Navy.) I could go on and on but I hope you get the point.
Obviously, all countries throughout history have behaved this way to one degree or another. But America has an ideal. I feel like we should know better. Our ideals just make the aggrieved more bitter. Nobody likes hypocrisy. We can be engaged in the world as an example, a good citizen, and then will come respect and admiration.
Previous statement re: globalization are absolutely correct, there can be no isolationism any more. But there certainly can be more of being an upright world citizen. Why is it that are “defense” toward terrorism is always relaxing our standards and ideals. We become the monsters we despise. To be better requires a lot of faith, but it is this faith that building Zion requires.
Geoff,
Again, that’s one take. In fact, Al-Qaida is loving the fact that we’re in Iraq. They get plenty of targets this way. Whether we leave or not, it won’t change the fact that Al-Qaida is coming after us. If we’re no longer in Iraq, they will also no longer be in Iraq. Do you honestly think that Iraqis care for Al-Qaida? They certainly don’t.
What evidence do you have that Iraq will become another Afghanistan? I mean hard evidence.
Geoff,
#27,
Note that in Darfur they are pressing the political resolution, not a military resolution. While plenty of Sudanese are still dying, this process will bring about a longer lasting resolution than if we were to involve ourselves militarily. I believe it is foolish to attempt to use a military to intervene in a civil war.
Geoff,
“But the reality is that an Iraq without a U.S. presence would quickly become another Afghanistan plotting new attacks against the United States. So, we would find ourselves going back to Iraq to pacify new terrorist threats pretty quickly.”
So we have to stay there to keep crushing the new enemies we’ve created? In the process, creating more enemies in ever enlarging circles until we have to crush the whole world?
If we pulled out Iraq and left them to themselves what reason would they have to fight us anymore? The reason for their anger would be gone… except for the destruction of infrastructure, production sharing agreements in the oil industry, hundreds of thousands of extra graves, hugely increased rates of cancer in kids from depleted uranium weapons etc.
Dan, regarding Japan and Germany, please read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripartite_Pact#German_declaration_of_war_against_the_United_States
It was not necessarily a given that a Japanese attack on the United States meant Germany was at war with the United States. In fact, there were many U.S. factions who felt that we should only take on Japan. Hitler’s machiavellian plot at one time was to keep the U.S. neutral as long as possible so he could consolidate control of Europe.
This is exactly my point: the United States in theory could have made “peace” in 1938 with Hitler and Togo. But this would not have been the “right” thing to do morally. Peace at all cost is not always the best policy for nation-states to pursue. Sometimes the right thing to do involves intervention to prevent greater bloodshed.
As for your #29, I have no crystal ball. I think we can all imagine what Iraq would look like if the U.S. were to withdraw in, say, January 2008 and concentrate on Afghanistan, for example. My vision of that situation is one constant round of bloodshed with Sunnis against Shiites and Kurds all fighting for control. We know Iran’s terrorist groups are involved in Iraq, and clearly Iran wants a role there. We know different Arab groups are propping up the Sunnis. I think we have a very interesting parallel: Afghanistan after the pullout of the Soviet army. We know what happened there with the Taliban eventually taking control. And of course that led to 9/11. I guess that would be my “hard evidence.”
Again, an Iraqi nearer the situation than us commenters here thinks the following would happen if we left Iraq:
“If the Americans leave, they will take the murderous rabble… they brought with them.
The death squads they trained and implanted in our midst would be hunted down and killed.
Jaafary and Maliki and all the Daawa dogs would be hunted down.
Millions of Iraqis – Shia and Sunni – would descend on Baghdad and rid it of the scum the US planted there.
A period of initial chaos would follow. Then reconciliation.
Then Iraqis would go about fixing what the Americans couldn’t – and not have to steal $18 billion because the US coffers were running empty thanks to the dog in the White House.
Please, withdraw your raping horde of an army.”
Geoff B (#18): Take a step back in Iraq. Put away your Bush/Cheney hatred.
Geoff, one way to “avoid partisanship…and instead try to concentrate on real solutions” (as you suggested in your original post) is to set aside the notion that everyone who disagrees with the current administration’s foreign and military policy is driving around with “F*** BUSH” bumper stickers on their cars.
There are many people in this country, myself among them, who believe that President Bush has taken the wrong step at nearly every turn in the Iraq affair (starting long before the invasion), and passionately wish that we could extricate ourselves from this situation. But those beliefs do not equate to, nor are they based on, “Bush/Chaney hatred.”
So I ask of you, please stop broad-brushing the administration’s critics. It will go a long way toward fostering intelligent discussion on this difficult topic.
Mike, point taken. But I really am not interested in another partisan debate. We’ve seen too many of them on the Bloggernacle and, frankly, they’re boring.
Do you have anything else to add? I’d like to see some suggestions about how we can extricate ourselves from the situation without making it worse or causing the deaths of even more people after we leave. Do you have any of those suggestions?
Geoff,
you must have misread my comment, because nowhere in my comment did I say that Germany declared war on the United States because the US attacked Japan. I said that Japan declared war on the United States. Germany then followed suit. Your link confirms that.It was not necessarily a given that a Japanese attack on the United States meant Germany was at war with the United States.
Germany certainly didn’t HAVE to declare war on the United States, as the United States to this point hadn’t done anything to them, nor attacked Japan. Germany CHOSE to declare war against the United States, BEFORE the United States chose to declare war on Germany. As such, Germany was the aggressor.
That is an incorrect assessment of history, and the link you provide directly refutes that statement. Hitler made one of the two biggest mistakes in his warring with the world. His biggest mistake was to take the fight to the Soviet Union. His second biggest mistake was this, declaring war on America at a time when America wasn’t even looking to war against Germany.
Technically, in 1938, America did not choose to war with Germany, even though Germany began its preparations for war, and as such, does not fit with your assessment of history. The United States did not go to war against Germany for moral reasons. They did not go to war against Germany to stop the onslaught of the Nazi war machine. They went to war against Germany because Germany declared war against them.
Ah, now that’s getting better. Of course Iran wants a role in Iraq. They are neighbors, and with a Shi’ite majority, Iran definitely wants to make sure Iraq stays close to them. It is very understandable. Is it wrong or evil? Well, I personally don’t think so, but as is very clear, many Americans think that is unacceptable.
The solution in Iraq is political. Breaking down doors with our military will not solve the problem. Pull them back, and get the parties (all the relevant parties—including Iran, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Sunni insurgents, Shi’ite militias, and Kurdish leaders) together to talk. As long as America is present in Iraq, however, things will not quiet down. Is there a chance for things getting worse? Of course. Is there a chance of things getting worse with Americans still there? Of course. There is no good option right now. But one thing is clear, the only path that will bring about some kind of resolution, however tenuous is political, not military.
http://drudgereport.com/flash2.htm
POLL: AMERICANS ‘WANT TO WIN IN IRAQ’
Tue Feb 20 2007 16:21:32 ET
In the wake of the U.S. House of Representatives passing a resolution that amounts to a vote of no confidence in the Bush administration’s policies in Iraq, a new national survey by Alexandria, VA-based Public Opinion Strategies (POS) shows the American people may have some different ideas from their elected leaders on this issue.
The survey was conducted nationwide February 5-7 among a bi-partisan, cross-section of 800 registered voters. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent. The survey was commissioned by The Moriah Group, a Chattanooga-based strategic communications and public affairs firm.
The survey shows Americans want to win in Iraq, and that they understand Iraq is the central point in the war against terrorism and they can support a U.S. strategy aimed at achieving victory, said Neil Newhouse, a partner in POS. The idea of pulling back from Iraq is not where the majority of Americans are.
# By a 53 percent – 46 percent margin, respondents surveyed said that Democrats are going too far, too fast in pressing the President to withdraw troops from Iraq.
# By identical 57 percent – 41 percent margins, voters agreed with these statements: I support finishing the job in Iraq, that is, keeping the troops there until the Iraqi government can maintain control and provide security and the Iraqi war is a key part of the global war on terrorism.
# Also, by a 56 percent – 43 percent margin, voters agreed that even if they have concerns about his war policies, Americans should stand behind the President in Iraq because we are at war.
Geoff B (#35): Do you have anything else to add? I’d like to see some suggestions about how we can extricate ourselves from the situation without making it worse or causing the deaths of even more people after we leave. Do you have any of those suggestions?
Considering the length and depth of the hatred between Shiites and Sunnis, I don’t hold out any hope for a military solution, and very little for a political one. There are no good solutions, only bad solutions and worse solutions.
If we stay, we remain a catalyst for violence. If we leave suddenly, Iraq (or at least the portions around Baghdad) will descend further into civil war. Either way, people will die and the U.S. will be responsible for their deaths.
My preferred solution is to partition the country into three separate states: Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish. This has its own hurdles to overcome, including the relocation of people in mixed communities (although this is already occurring on its own), the reality of the Shiite portion becoming a de facto extension of Iran with control of most of Iraq’s oil fields, and the enormous resistance to a Kurdish state from surrounding countries (most notably our ally Turkey).
If partitioning isn’t possible, then a slow, steady withdrawal that leaves progressively more power in local Iraqi hands is all that we really have left.
addrax (#37):
I doubt that the majority of Americans know the details of what “win in Iraq” means. I strongly doubt George W. Bush knows, either.
Of course no one wants to “lose.” But there is no definable military objective for our troops in Iraq. We can’t “win” unless we set specific conditions that define what “winning” is. (Sorry, Mr. President, but “an Iraq that can sustain itself, defend itself, and serve as an ally in the war on terror” isn’t specific enough.)
I have come to believe that there is no way to “win” in Iraq, and that we should not ask our brave and capable soldiers and Marines to continue to lay down their lives attempting to do what simply cannot be done. The great Wilsonian dream for Iraq will never come to pass, no matter how many troops we deploy.
A comment by Curtis was deleted for violating the M* comments policy. Curtis, I would kindly ask you to avoid quoting from sources like that. I know you think you are showing how “people really feel,” but insulting rhetoric is not what I want on this thread. Thanks.
I would agree with Mike that we’ve done a poor job, just as we did in Vietnam, of defining exactly what “victory” means. It makes it difficult for us to know when we have won and makes our commitment seem open-ended. Having said that, I still think the poll Addrax quotes is quite extraordinary.
Geoff (#41):
Can you define, specifically, what “winning” in Iraq would entail? What exactly must our troops accomplish before we can say “we’ve won; now let’s bring them home”?
I don’t want amorphous concepts here (“a stable, democratic Iraq,” etc.); I want a checklist of definable goals that can be ticked off as they are accomplished.
(Distressingly, I highly doubt such a list even exists on the desks of George W. Bush and Robert Gates.)
Every time I think about Iraq, my thoughts always turn to the cycle of the Nephites in the Book of Mormon.
Think about how our country was during World War II and shortly thereafter. The nation, for the most part, was a God-fearing nation. We had good, Judeo-Christian values. There was still prayer in school. Honesty and morality were esteemed, not denigrated. And we kicked buttz.
Then, the 60’s happened. Traditional morals were replaced by free love, prolific drugs, and political corruption. We got our buttz kicked in Vietnam.
Then there’s today. In many ways, today’s America makes the 60’s and 70’s look like "Leave it to Beaver." The systematic removal of God from society, s3x on TV, pr0nography proliferating on the Internet, predators on MySpace – just listen to the ceaseless words of caution emanating from the pulpit during General Conference. If the trend continues, I can’t help but think we’ll have our buttz handed to us on a platter when Iran and Iraq are all over with.
So, I’ve come to the conclusion that the right course of action abroad is to first focus domestically on a return to the values our nation was founded on. If we don’t, the Lord will make sure that our enemies will give us a reason to. And if we keep progressing down the road we are, that’s exactly what the Iran/Iraq conflict will degenerate into.
Also, the words of the Savior in 3 Ne. 14: 3-5 come to mind:
3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother: Let me pull the mote out of thine eye – and behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
5 Thou hypocrite, first cast the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brother’s eye.
“Think about how our country was during World War II and shortly thereafter. The nation, for the most part, was a God-fearing nation. We had good, Judeo-Christian values. There was still prayer in school. Honesty and morality were esteemed, not denigrated. And we kicked buttz.”
Of course there were those nasty neglected things like abject poverty, out of control racism. (Look at how Blacks were treated not to mention Japanese internment) There weren’t checks on the police who regularly engaged in what today we’d call torture. Most major cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago etc.) were corrupt in a way that today we see in places like Mexico city.
The rose colored glasses tend to neglect failures of the American ideal that arguably were far worse than prayer in school. (After all the Klansmen hanging African Americans up with the protection of the community were “good god-fearing people” according to the standard you put up.
I think you neglect just how much progress we’ve made as a nation. We tend to have a myopia about our failures (and I agree on much of the bad from the 60’s) and neglect our successes.
Frankly I’d not want to live in 1948 America.
Well how about this?
Suppose our military quagmire in Iraq is leeching away our military and diplomatic leverage in the Pacific Rim. As we continue to chase the snake that bit us in the Middle East, the major powers of the Pacific Rim: China, Japan, Russia, Korea, all start to eye each other with increasing suspicion. Japan and China enter a state of cold war and arms race, possibly with Japan developing a nuclear arsenal. Sino-Russo relations deteriorate as well with increasing potential for violence.
How many regions of LDS proselyting might be lost in such a deterioration of Americas policing role?
But I should note that a collapse of American hegemony need not be fatal to Mormonism.
After all, St. Augustine and others were facing the same sort of uncertainties as Rome was in decline. The leadership of Christianity at the time was incredibly concerned about the fate of Christianity without a Rome to guide it.
Yet Roman Catholicism did manage to break free of reliance on Rome and make inroads with the surrounding barbarian kings.
Perhaps Mormonism could do the same?
Or are we, frankly, too dependent on our American benefactor to make the shift?
Clark,
#44,
hear! hear! Maybe some should go back and live then to see just how much better life is now. We really are in the best of times and the worst of times, with the best of people and the worst of people.
I am amazed at the defeatist attitude in our country. If anything, we should learn from such failures as Vietnam (which was really a political debacle) that we will only “lose” if we run away–not to mention the horrific aftermath that would follow our withdraw as in the case of Vietnam.
Shame on you lefties. I thought you valued foriegn lives as much as American lives. Will you shout victory like the antiwarmongers during Vietnam who were happy when our boys finally came home but didn’t give a damn about the fall of Saigon?
The Swiss aren’t single-handedly responsible for the security and well-being of half the globe either. And they never have been. They’ve managed to stay neutral not primarily because they’re highly moral, but because frankly, no one cares what they do. Same with Hong Kong, Dubai and Sweden.
If the US behaved as Switzerland, it would be a massive humanitarian and political disaster for the entire globe.
Jack, the defeatist attitude is probably because we’ve been defeated. Kind of odd how that works out. You conveniently forget that Nixon won election by promising to end the war. It wasn’t just “lefties,” who pulled out – everyone was calling for withdrawl. That the left lost Vietnam is one of the right-wing political myths in America.
And Republicans have repeatedly demonstrated they are every bit as capable as Democrats of not giving a damn when governments are overthrown and people are killed in droves. This has been demonstrated countless times throughout the 20th century.
No one cared about the fall of Saigon because, frankly, it didn’t make one bit of difference to America’s real global interests.
Looks like Jack didn’t follow the guidelines for this post and fell into traditional partisanship. Com’on Jack, are you up for a real debate, or you do want to continue acting like a 12 year old
The catch is that our US military over the last 20 years has been designed for just that. We don’t have a standing military capable of the more aggressive actions that Geoff and the neocons are arguing for.
My brother is currently serving in Iraq. It’s his third deployment in the last five years. If he makes it home physically (he will never be the same emotionally), then he will be unemployed. There are some state and federal laws to protect reservists’ jobs, but they never anticipated that kind of burden, and thus most soldiers have no right to sue.
When my brother signed up to serve if needed, the wording in his contract states that it would be for the defense of his country. Not for an aggressive incursion from a president who lied to the American public.
If neocons want to play cowboy around the world, they will have to cough up the money, and that certainly means cancelling tax cuts.
And please let’s also consider the morality of the US government’s stand toward its reservists, which I find to be in breach of contract and not living up to its word.
To the original queston, no, I don’t think we can discuss it. Many Mormons have an irrational support of the state of Israel, due to Orson Hyde and all that. In the first year that I joined the church, I had a neighbor who was a Palestinian Mormon, whose family had been treated very badly by the Israelis so I never did see Israel through rose-colored glasses.
Also, my husband applied for a job in Israel, and when the employer started to make plans for an interview visit, he became angry that a non-Jew had “wasted his time” by applying for the job and yelled at my husband. Hey, the ad was in SCIENCE and did not specify religion. This professor thought everyone should know that in Israel, non-Jews got substandard health care, couldn’t live in the same apartments as Jews, and their children can’t go to public schools. No, that’s not commonly known in the US, sir.
Since the protection of Israel is at the heart of these discussions, it is hard to discuss if I don’t share others’ views as to its importance.
I’d agree with Naismith, but for different reasons.
The question of Iran and Iraq is not primarily a “Mormon issue.” It is a political issue. Discussions of the subject will always end up politicized.
And if you want to discuss US foreign policy, it’s just impossible to do that without touching upon just how much the current administration has departed from the model set by past presidents and fundamentally altered the playing field.
I think it will take decades to heal the amount of damage Bush has done to our political discourse. We’re still not recovering from Watergate completely, and what Bush has done is far more momentous than anything Nixon did. I think political debate in the US will be incurably polarized as long as Bush is in office.
And yes, it does bother me how hard it is for me to keep a civil tone when discussing the President.
Regarding Jack and Dan’s response (#54), I would have to agree that Dan has a point. Jack, it’s not convincing or helpful for the debate to call the “lefties’ ” position “shameful.” It is worth pointing out that there are plenty of “righties” who also support such a position.
Dan, it’s also not helpful to compare such comments to a 12-year-old. Please tone down the rhetoric — Jack was aiming at unnamed people, you’re aiming directly at him.
Naismith,
#55,
This is one of the most important points to make about our continual aggressive actions around the world, and I find Americans are not talking about this enough. When we send our military into a country like Iraq, the bill that comes back to the American tax payer is HUGE. Right now Iraq costs about $4 BILLION dollars per month (if I have my numbers correct). Through 2008, the Iraq War will have cost America $600 billion dollars. The kicker is that nobody alive today is paying for this war. In fact it isn’t even on the regular Pentagon budget (else they might be held more accountable). No, this war is being put on a credit card, with the bill sent to our children.
Are neo-conservatives ready and willing to accept making a sacrifice and actually paying for the wars they espouse? What kind of irresponsible policy is this where you demand an action but are unwilling to pay for its execution?
Unless we are willing to show less selfishness, history will not look kindly to our generation (from baby-boomers to Gen-X), and we will go into the next life rather shamefully.
Naismith, I think you make a valid point that any foreign policy involving U.S. involvement in humanitarian efforts — which is what I consider the current Iraq engagement to be — do not match our current military strength. That is something to consider in all of this debate.
However, I think you’re wrong to blame everything on Mormons’ supposed love of Israel because of Orson Hyde. First of all, Saddam Hussein or somebody like him would exist in the Middle East if all of the Jews in WWII had been killed and Israel did not exist. I’m sure you are able to recognize that a lot of Saddam’s supposed support of the Palestinian cause was really a cynical political ploy to rally the Arab world to his cause. Even the other Arabs realized that after time, which is why there was no popular “street uprising” when Saddam was overthrown.
I have Palestinian friends, one Christian and one Muslim. Their situation is tragic, and I understand it and feel it. I love them as fellow sons of Heavenly Father just as much as I love Jews. But most people today support Israel primarily because the Palestinians have made a mess of their own country, Israel is a democracy and pro-U.S. and many Palestinians have embraced terror as a political movement (electing Hamas was probably not a very smart move if you want to sway public opinion to your side). It also probably didn’t help Palestinians very much when they were filmed dancing in the streets after 9/11. Even though many Muslims (and Osama bid Laden) try to draw Palestine in as the KEY ISSUE regarding the Middle East, it is not. The key issues have to do with oil, terrorism, nuclear ambitions, regional stability, national interests and humanitarian concerns primarily centered today on Iraq and Iran. If, by some magic, Iraq were pacified and Iran were to give up nuclear weapons and terrorism, Israel would again take center stage. But until then, it’s not the key issue.
In response to Curtis’ quotation, here are the thoughts of some members of the Iraqi military on US presence in Iraq:
INDC: What do you think of the American presence here? How do you feel about the Americans, and has this feeling changed over time?
Mohaned F: “We work well with them. The MiTT team teaches my soldiers something new every day. We have classes with them.”
Mohaned N: “I wish to keep the US here because it is good for us. We can learn new things every day, and if we work together a long time, it will be good for the Iraqi Army.”
Jabbar: “I want the US to stay a long time. We need weapons, we need training we want to work with the Americans for a very long time.”
INDC: How do you view Iraq’s future? What do you think is going to happen here?
Jabbar: “We have a good future.”
Mohaned N: “It will be good.”
INDC: OK, let me ask one more time: do you have any idea who the insurgents are? Who are the people you are fighting?
Mohaned N: “In the past, some people work for Saddam Hussein, like his intelligence service or the Fedayeen Saddam. These people hate the new army because they can’t join the new army. But we are different than them – we hate the terrorists, we hate these people. And we want to build our country.”
INDC: How did you feel about the execution of Saddam Hussein?
Mohaned N: “He’s been in custody for years so this was a long time coming. He hurt a lot of people.”
INDC: What would you tell the American people if you could tell them anything?
Mohaned N: “Tell the American people we need the US Army here. We want to work with them for a longer time. And in the future we can say that we have built the Iraqi Army together.”
The others nodded approval.
http://www.indcjournal.com/archives/002948.php
As for the religious/political intersection that the Iraq War presents I’d suggest that one can feel ok with their stance depending on how they parse the situation. I’d guess that alot of it hinges on the question “Do you think that the US is a stabilizing or destabilizing force in Iraq today.” If you think we are providing stability then why would you not want us there? Whereas if you thought we are causing instability then I can understand why you would want us to leave. One or the other is likely wrong, but that does not mean that those that hold the position are acting immorally. We are judged based on our actions in accordance with our understanding after all.
For me I see the US as a positive presence and I want to see us stay there through the current troubles. I see nothing good or positive about leaving and get depressed when so much of the opposition to the War seems to be a passive “I’m sick of hearing about this, why can’t it just go away?” viewpoint. (Note, if you’re commenting on this thread then obviously you don’t share this passive viewpoint so this isn’t directed at you.)
Should be noted that a LOT of Afghanis were incredibly afraid of the Russians pulling out of Afghanistan in the 80s. One Russian army lieutenant recalls a bunch of villagers begging him not to leave. “If your men leave, those people on the other side of that hill will come over here and kill us all!”
There are a few interesting parallels between the USSR in Afghanistan, and the US in Iraq. The main one being that the US troops are a stabilizing influence in Iraq the same way Russian troops were a stabilizing influence in Afghanistan. In both cases the soldiers were undoubtedly a stabilizing influence and prevented further bloodshed. Whatever Dan says, the US troops in Iraq are all that’s stopping a Rwandan-style genocide, or an Afghan-style civil war followed by a Taliban-style government (or Iranian-style if we’re lucky). In both cases the troop pullout was, and will be, a very bad thing for the locals.
But that wasn’t really the point, and isn’t really the point.
Curtis, I hope you can see the difference between the quotations provided in #61 above and yours above in #19 (and repeated in #33) and also the quotation I deleted. It is not just the perspective, although you will insist it is, it is the type of rhetoric used and the nature of the quotation. Calling the president a “dog” and the U.S. army a “raping horde” is not constructive and does not foster an environment of positive debate. It is simply rhetoric and will be ignored or deleted. In contrast, #61 provides information and is not insulting to anybody (notice that nobody is called a dog or a raping horde).
I know of no other “humanitarian” effort that has killed so many innocent civilians.
It’s a big, big stretch for me to see our efforts there as humanitarian in any way. We kill innocent civilians every day, not to mention those who die because of our destruction of the infrastructure.
This conversation would be easier if you would stop bringing Frank Luntz tactics to the table. Revenue enhancements. Humanitarian effort. Yeah, right.
Seth,
a stabilizing force? I see nothing stable in Iraq, nor in Afghanistan of the 1980s. Both countries, however were quite stable before they were invaded. But as Afghanistan showed us, there was no going back to that stability, just like there is no going back to the stability Iraq had before we invaded it. (please, here put aside your thoughts on Saddam’s evil regime—however evil it was, he held the country together–the irony is that America seeks right now that kind of stability, seeing that a pro-western democracy is certainly out of the question now in Iraq).
So what is the future for Iraq? well, as long as a foreign military is present, there will be no lasting stability because, as we see so clearly, a good portion of the population wants that foreign presence gone and fights against it, leading to more instability.
Let me say again, Iraq will not be solved militarily. The solution lies in the political and diplomatic realm. But here is the problem. Today’s American leaders don’t want to talk to the nations that can help us solve this political problem. As long as this continues, we will continue seeing instability and violence in Iraq.
Dan, yes Iraq was better off under Saddam than it is now under us.
And of course it’s not stable. Of course it’s a mess. Of course it will continue to be a mess for the foreseeable future of US occupation. You’re not getting my point.
However bad things are now, it’s most certainly going to get a LOT worse for the Iraqis once we pull out. From the perspective of the average Iraqi on the street US troops are definitely a stabilizing influence over what the situation WILL be once they are gone.
Yes, I’ve heard you quote polls and Iraqis who want us to leave right now. But that doesn’t mean they are right, or even that this opinion is in the majority. A lot of the people who want us to leave are also ideological nutcases. Most of the Iraqis I’ve heard interviewed want the US to stay. If you ask a random Iraqi which soldiers they trust, they’ll almost always say the Americans – because they know that the Iraqi police and soldiers are simply sectarian death squads in disguise.
Also note that accurate polling in Iraq is flat-out impossible. You can’t do it without someone eventually shooting you, or forcing you into a car and driving you off to a dirty basement were they finish you off slowly with a power drill. So neither you nor I have any realistic basis for saying what the Iraqis really want. OK? You don’t know what they want.
Hey Geoff, my comment is being rejected. I don’t see any bad keywords. I don’t think it’s too long. But it keeps telling me the comment is invalid.
Do you know this, or are you just assuming? What is your reference?
Because I’ve attended a few seminars where those who actually conduct polling in Iraq have explained their methodology, and I find it quite impressive.
As a basis for sample design, they have access to the last pre-invasion census, because as the war was looming, a government official downloaded the data to a laptop and later sold it. It provided the sample frame for the first random sample that ABC News did in 2004.
Much of the polling in Iraq is being done by native Iraqis, training extensively and managed by boutique polling firms that have expertise in working in emerging economies and third-world conditions.
Keep in mind that even in the US, accurate polling has barriers. US government census representatives who collect data for the recurring surveys that make up the monthly unemployment rate, statistics on consumer expenditures, etc. are routinely barred from rich gated communities and low-income housing projects, so substitution procedures similar to those used in Iraq are utilized.
To say the only reason the US invaded Iraq was on false evidence is clearly not the case. WMD’s was given as the main reason as part of a “marketing” campaign to the American people. It is childish to think that this was only reason.
“The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government — a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people.” – President William Clinton on Iraq in 1998
Seth,
That’s your fear, and based solely on the Soviets leaving Afghanistan, would be a good fear to have. However, I don’t advocate an immediate withdrawal, and a turning back on Iraq, which seems to be what many conservatives think when a liberal mentions this idea. Hardly. I keep mentioning over and over and over and over (because no matter how many times I repeat it, people don’t seem to read my words) that the answer is political, not military. The Soviet Union, when they withdrew out of Afghanistan, they did absolutely nothing but ignore and pretend they were never there. No American advocates that for Iraq.
The answer is political, and as such requires an America that is proactively engaged in the region politically. At this point, we are not, no matter how many times Ms. Rice flies on her plan on ‘surprise’ visits to Baghdad.
We are not advocating leaving Iraq like the Soviets left Afghanistan. Please don’t use them as an example of what will happen.
addrax,
Who is saying this? Can you reference it please?
#49
Seth, #67, sorry about that on your comment not getting posted. Unfortunately, our software still does that. I’ll see what I can do about getting it fixed. Sometimes there are key words that trigger a block. I don’t even know what those key words are.
Wow – lots of comments. No way I can catch up to them all.
Arguably it is strongly prophesied about in LDS scripture and popular theology. So one can argue that it is necessary for the establishment of Zion even if it is something none of us want.
I’m sure others have spoken to this. But really. Minded their own business? You mean like trying to assassinate Bush I? Or breaking sanctions? Or violating no-fly zones? Or so forth? Technically the number of violations of the cease fire were adding up each and every year. There’s a lot of reason to be critical of Bush II’s war. But to argue that Iraq was minding their own business is simply incredible to assert.
Disengagement of this sort is only possible if you have others looking out for you. i.e. disengagement for Switzerland and Sweden was possible because one knew a Soviet invasion would be countered by the United States. Likewise Swiss “disengagement” with the Germans in WWII was actually probably better described as weak collaboration.
Hong Kong is an odd example given that they were controlled by the British until a few years ago and now are part of China. Ask the Taiwanese how they feel about China.
I think that’s a fair comment. I think we should, although given Bush’s failures it’s a moot point now. There’s no way the rest of the world would put up with it. There was a golden moment to help promote democracy and Bush brought out almost the worst of all possibilities. (I say almost since I still hope Iraq can avoid full civil war and anarchy)
Sadly I think you are right. But it wasn’t just Bush. It was the divisions started in the 90’s with the impeachment process for Clinton, a effective tie in 2000, the polarizations within the parties, and then Bush’s actions in Iraq and his politicalization of the war for expediency in gaining Republican seats. If Clinton II wins in 2008 then that will make things only worse.
One wishes for someone who can bring the nation together rather than apart.
It wasn’t the only reason but I think for most supporters of the war it was the deciding reason. That is had most known prior to the buildup that there were no WMDs then I don’t think there would have been much support for war.
Could you perhaps clarify what you are advocating? And perhaps clarify it from positions from folks like say Murtha?
Here is some intelligent discussion on Iraq. Mother Jones has just documented that terrorist attacks have increased 7-fold since the US invaded Iraq.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2007/03/iraq_101.html
What do you think would happen if we withdrew the fuel from the fire?
Curtis, a true story. At one point when I was much younger and much dumber, I worked at the Nation magazine. This was in 1984, to be precise. I actually wrote an article for the Progressive magazine and knew many people at Mother Jones, the Nation, the Progressive, the whole lefty group. And, interestingly, in those days people at Mother Jones, the Nation and the Progressive magazine spent a lot of time arguing that the big bogeyman was the Kissinger Realpolitik policy. The left in those days felt that foreign policy should be based on humanitarian concerns primarily. And one of the big enemies for the left in those days was, yes, Saddam Hussein. People at the Nation would get red-faced with anger about Reagan not taking Saddam Hussein more seriously as one of the worst dictators in the world. “Why are we concerned about Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua? We should be trying to overthrow Saddam Hussein!!!!” They would shout. And, yes, they all favored a military invasion to overthrow a dictator who was clearly a fascist (in their view, in my view Hussein’s politics were more complex than that).
Well, 19 years later they got their wish, and of course they have all forgotten such arguments because of course they couldn’t favor overthrowing such a noble, misunderstood person as Saddam Hussein. The left now says, “at least Saddam Hussein kept the country from falling apart!” They have forgotten, but a few brave souls like Christopher Hitchens, who was around in the 1980s, have reminded them, but they didn’t want to hear it, so of course the Nation asked him to leave, and he stopped writing there after the Iraq invasion.
But in any case, to answer your question directly, what would happen if we withdrew from Iraq would be a huge humanitarian crisis involving millions of dead in Iraq and perhaps a regional crisis that would eventually draw in Iran, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and cause the death of additional millions.
Personally, I don’t want that on my conscience.
Geoff,
Fortunately, I’m not one who held the same opinion as those you describe as being on the Left in the 80’s. I would have encouraged withdrawing support for the dictator rather than to invade and kill 655,000 Iraqis. Our support for Saddam thru the worst of his atrocities showed that we didn’t really care much about human rights back then either.
Methinks you paint the left with a broad brush there amigo.
Your apocalyptic vision of a US pullout is scary sounding but is it true? Not all think so:
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/48186/
It was our support for Saddam in the 1980s that got the left all riled up, just as it still gets me riled up. I think there is more room for humanitarian concerns in foreign policy. I personally am pretty riled up about the support we give Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other human rights abusers. Perhaps on that we can agree.
Yes. On that we can agree. Feels kind of nice to agree with you on an issue for the first time ever!
I’d love to see it happen, but have little faith it will in my lifetime. Too much success in politics now is based on polarization of almost every subject in a political debate. Somewhere along the line everything because black and white in most politicians eyes, and we vote based on that.
You’re for or against the death penalty. You’re for or against Iraq. You’re for or against abortion. You’re for or against Bush. Maybe it’s been this way forever, but as much as 9/11 seemed to bring our country together, it’s also when everything seemed to have become purely black and white in politics more than ever before (at least in my lifetime).
[Mike holds hands with Geoff, Curtis, Clark, and addrax.]
Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya….
OK, just so we don’t get into too much kumbaya-ing, let me say that I disagree (somewhat) with jjohnsen and Clark on the whole issue of polarization. I’m not convinced politics are any more polarized today than they were, for example, in the early 1800s when you had politicians literally killing each other in duels. You should read some of the debates that took place then. Whew!!! Talk about rhetoric. And then of course you had political differences leading up to the Civil War that were about as polarizing as you can get (the slavery question was THE ISSUE for decades even before the war started). And don’t get me started on, for example, the 1960s, when politics were so polarized several of our leaders were assassinated.
I’m not sure our times are necessarily worse by comparison.
Geoff, I actually agree. 19th century politics were blood sport. However I think what’s different today from the 19th century is the reach of the government. (Although I suppose one could think of major wars in the 19th century that definitely had influence not to mention the treatment of Indians)
Today more government regulation is necessary and of course in place. So we really need more consensus building and less polarization.
The Civil War issue is of course the ultimate in polarization. And of course the roots of this polarization go back to the foundations of the Republic. My fear is that if we aren’t careful we’ll reach that level of polarization again.
Clark #83: Today more government regulation is necessary….
Oh, don’t get me started on how much I disagree with that notion.
Geoff,
Sorry for my sarcastic tone.
Seth,
I didn’t say that the left was primarily responsible for pulling the U.S. out of Vietnam. I was trying to draw a parallel (albeit, sarcastically) between the attitude then and the attitude now of those who vehemenantly oppose the war.
As it relates to the fall of Saigon, my question is: from a gospel perspective, should we have cared? And if so, should we not in like manner care about the likely horrific aftermath of our withdrawl from Iraq?
It seems to me that you and most others here who oppose the war do have a concern that we not pull out too quickly. I think most sensible people share the same concern. However, what I fear might happen is a long drawn out conflict a la Vietnam as we merely try to manage the situation. We might have been able to whip the Viet Cong (and practically did) were it not for the political silliness going on in our own country. IMO, the same is true today with respect to Iraq. I think Bush needs to redouble his military efforts and go in there and finish this job.
I disagree about our “defeat.” No war in history has ever been covered so intimately by the media. I wonder if our morale would have been so high during WWII had the same level of IT been available in those days.
Dan,
I guess we both didn’t follow the guidelines very well.
Sorry I’m so late to the party.
Jonathan Green’s comment # 2 is correct – we first need to have accurate facts to discuss. The first thing we need to do is quit throwing around that bogus 650,000 figure for civilian casualties. The Lancet study was a politically motivated piece of hack work, and the editor has admitted it. Please go to iraqbodycount dot org and click on the link to see their response to Lancet. They do a very thorough takedown of the phony numbers. For the record, the people who run iraqbodycount are vehemently opposed to the war, they just think it is better to argue with facts rather than delusions.
So, after almost 4 years in Iraq we are now looking at around 63,000 civilian deaths, and about 3,200 U.S. soldiers killed. I have nor figures for the number of coalition soldiers from outside the U.S. By comparison, a decade ago in the Bosnian war there were an estimated 100,000 civilian deaths and 1.3 million refugees. And deaths in the U.S. military between 1993 and 1996 totalled 4,417.
The U.N. estimates that during the decade of the 90s, Saddam ran a genocidal regime that killed around 500,000 people. If their estimates are correct, our deposition of Saddam and our continued presence there is actually saving a large number of lives.
If anybody wants to respond, I hope you will simply deal with the numbers and refrain from casting aspersions upon my ancestry or IQ.
Mark,
The numbers are important. Of course, any number of deaths is significant, but understating the number of deaths by a factor of 10 is a pretty significant issue.
The technique used by the Johns Hopkins crew is the same sort of technique we’ve relied upon for years in measuring deaths in violent war torn areas. The technique is very statistically sound and anyone who understands statistics, knows that the most likely number of people killed in Iraq, in excess of the usual death rate pre-war, is 655,000, with 601,000 of those being violent deaths. The 95% confidence interval was somewhere between 400,000 and 900,000, so we’re 95% sure that the number lies in between there somewhere, but the most likely number is at the peak of the bell curve.
The authors of the study point out that the passive reporting of deaths in violent conflict is notoriously underreported, mostly between 5-20% of the true numbers of deaths historically. This is not disputed. As Iraq Body Count uses only western news sources for it’s numbers, it is not surprising that they understate the number of dead 10 fold.
The Iraqi minister of Health came out last year and said there are probably at least 150,000 deaths in Iraq due to violence since 2003. Even this number is higher than the official number the Iraqi government is currently claiming.
Les Roberts (one of the authors of the study) has recently said the following about the true number of deaths in Iraq:
“The government in Iraq claimed last month that since the 2003 invasion between 40,000 and 50,000 violent deaths have occurred. Few have pointed out the absurdity of this statement.
There are three ways we know it is a gross underestimate. First, if it were true, including suicides, South Africa, Colombia, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania and Russia have experienced higher violent death rates than Iraq over the past four years. If true, many North and South American cities and Sub-Saharan Africa have had a similar murder rate to that claimed in Iraq. For those of us who have been in Iraq, the suggestion that New Orleans is more violent seems simply ridiculous.
Secondly, there have to be at least 120,000 and probably 140,000 deaths per year from natural causes in a country with the population of Iraq. The numerous stories we hear about overflowing morgues, the need for new cemeteries and new body collection brigades are not consistent with a 10 per cent rise in death rate above the baseline.
And finally, there was a study, peer-reviewed and published in The Lancet, Europe’s most prestigious medical journal, which put the death toll at 650,000 as of last July. The study, which I co-authored, was done by the standard cluster approach used by the UN to estimate mortality in dozens of countries each year. While the findings are imprecise, the lower range of possibilities suggested that the Iraq government was at least downplaying the number of dead by a factor of 10.
There are several reasons why the governments involved in this conflict have been able to confuse the issue of Iraqi deaths. Our Lancet report involved sampling and statistical analysis, which is rather dry reading. Media reports always miss most deaths in times of war, so the estimate by the media-based monitoring system, Iraqbodycount.org (IBC) roughly corresponds with the Iraq government’s figures. Repeated evaluations of deaths identified from sources independent of the press and the Ministry of Health show the IBC listing to be less than 10 per cent complete, but because it matches the reports of the governments involved, it is easily referenced.
Several other estimates have placed the death toll far higher than the Iraqi government estimates, but those have received less press attention. When in 2005, a UN survey reported that 90 per cent of violent attacks in Scotland were not recorded by the police, no one, not even the police, disputed this finding. Representative surveys are the next best thing to a census for counting deaths, and nowhere but Iraq have partial tallies from morgues and hospitals been given such credence when representative survey results are available.
The Pentagon will not release information about deaths induced or amounts of weaponry used in Iraq. On 9 January of this year, the embedded Fox News reporter Brit Hume went along for an air attack, and we learned that at least 25 targets were bombed that day with almost no reports of the damage appearing in the press.
Saddam Hussein’s surveillance network, which only captured one third of all deaths before the invasion, has certainly deteriorated even further. During last July, there were numerous televised clashes in Anbar, yet the system recorded exactly zero violent deaths from the province. The last Minister of Health to honestly assess the surveillance network, Dr Ala’din Alwan, admitted that it was not reporting from most of the country by August 2004. He was sacked months later after, among other things, reports appeared based on the limited government data suggesting that most violent deaths were associated with coalition forces.”
Also Mark,
Rereading the the IBC critique shows me that they rely on seemingly difficult to believe implications of the study to show that the study is not accurate. They have no statistical critique because the statistics are solid. You can’t argue with numbers like those Roberts has accumulated. They interviewed 12,801 people for their stats in 47 random clusters. We take polls in the US based on far fewer numbers and rely on them for their statistical significance.
If you have a problem with the Johns Hopkins researchers methodology, let it be known, because none has been defensibly forthcoming in academia. All of the petty arguements of the US government and other critics can be soundly rejected by going back to the statistical significance of a soundly undertaken study with proven methodology.
655,000 is the number that we have to assume is most likely the true number of Iraqi deaths in excess of the usual since the end of the war if we are to start out with correct assumptions in this discussion.
I find it strangely perverse that we could be having a discussion where one side claims, in effect, that the U.S. has killed “only” 60,000 people, and since that is less than what would have happened under the former dictator, then what we did was okay.
Somehow I don’t think, “Yeah, we were evil — but we were less evil than the other guy,” isn’t going to fly at the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah.
“…and all the people were assembled together, they took their swords, and all the weapons which were used for the shedding of man’s blood, and they did bury them up deep in the earth. And this they did…that they never would use weapons again for the shedding of man’s blood; and this they did, vouching and covenanting with God, that rather than shed the blood of their brethren they would give up their own lives….” (Alma 24:17-18)
Curtis,
I have no problem at all with the sampling techniques, which I understand are typically used by epidemiologists to track the spread of an epidemic. But with an epidemic, you have a baseline of zero. The problem with the Lancet study arises with the choice of a baseline. It uses the year previous to the invasion as the baseline, a year when Saddam was on his best behavior. Use any of the 11 previous years, which would be probably more valid, as a baseline, and you come up with wildly fluctuating numbers. The choice of the baseline years reveals the bias in the reports conclusions. Really, you can cook the numbers any way you want at that point. I cannot understand why you are so willing to defend a study whose editor has already admitted is politically motivated.
If you are going to believe that report, you need to believe the following things:
1. 546 civilians have been killed every day since the start of the war. Remember, the newspapers report that a day with 35 casualties in Baghdad is an unusual event and indicates increasing violence.
2. The Lancet study counted 629 deaths, and extrapolated from there to 650,000. Of those 629 deaths, they asked to see a death certificate 545 times. Of the 545, a certificate was produced by a survivor 501 times. These are all numbers straight from the Lancet study itself. So a government issued death certificate was available from a low 0f 80% (501/629) to possibly as much as 92% (501/545) of the time. Lancet’s own figures therefore show the government’s numbers are accurate at least 80% of the time. So why not just go with them?
To take the Lancet conclusions seriously, you have to believe that the Iraqi government recorded deaths occurring since the invasion with an accuracy of at least 80%, but then suppressed 85-94% of those recorded deaths when releasing official figures, with no one blowing the whistle on them. You also have to believe that 85-94% of the dead bodies were unnoticed by reporters, funeral homes, IBC, and everyone else trying to keep track of the war casualties.
OR
You have to believe that the Iraqi govt. only issues death certificates for 6-15% of all deaths, but this random sample got 80% certificate hits by pure chance.
I don’t buy either conclusion. Which one do you think is right?
This study is a joke. They don’t break out the figures by individual province; the only clue is a map, on which Baghdad is in the basket marked “2-10 deaths per thousand per year”. Really, does that 2-10 figure inspire much confidence in you?
Mike Parker,
Your position makes sense if we assume that in a fallen world, violence is never appropriate. Perhaps that is your assumption, but I do not share it.
Yeah, 60,000 deaths is a lot, but it is less than 120,000. In my opinion, the 60,000 lives saved are also significant.
#7 Seth R
“It’s possible that this means Mormonism benefits more from a USA which maintains peace and the status quo, even at the expense of justice and human rights.”
I don’t think so, for the Lord Jesus Christ has given us the formula for peace throughout the centuries through His chosen Prophets. For example, the key to peace is righteousness as found in Isiah 32:17-18:
17 And the work of righteousness shall be peace;
and the effect of righteousness, quietness and
assurance forever.
18 And my people shall dwell in a peaceable
habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in
quiet resting places.
And in Isiah 54:14 (which interestingly enough contains the END of TERROR!)
14 In righteousness shalt thou be established:
Thou shalt be far from oppression; for thou
shalt not fear: AND FROM TERROR; for it shall
not come near thee.
Couple that with Proverbs 16:7
When a man’s ways please the Lord, he maketh
even his enemies to be at peace with him, and
22:1 A GOOD name is rather to be chosen than great
riches; and loving favor rather than silver and
gold,
then we have have a powerful antidote to fear, doubt,
and uncertainty, both in our private and public lives.
For further clarification, I recommend Leviticus chapter 26 in its entirety. The first 13 verses list all the blessings that result from keeping the commandments and walking in His statutes; and the cursing, scourging, and desolation that await those who disobey, starting at verse 14.
Guess where TERROR comes in?
GeoffB; “This world can be a scary and complicated
place sometimes.”
Doesn’t have to be. All we have to do is choose correct principles, and stick to them, as alluded to at least partially in my forgoing comments. I’ll add a couple more for your consideration:
1 “Preemptive” strikes were expressly forbidden in both the OT and the Book of Mormon, and anytime the Israelites or Nephites disobeyed that, they ALWAYS lost, and paid a terrible price.
2. The fact that we were attacked by foreigners on 9/11 is prima facie evidence that at least some among us are not living the level of righteousness required by the Lord to ensure our peace.
How many times In The Book of Mormon has the Lord promise that this land should be blessed with liberty and protected from other nations if its inhabitants would serve Him and Keep His commandments? (2Nephi 7-13).
It is my considered opinion that when we put The Lord first in our lives, we will be given the keys to peace with ourselves and our neighbors, whoever they may be. True, we may have to fight to the death to protect our families, our homes, and our beloved country, but I am absolutely convinced that He will ALWAYS deliver us from our enemies as long as we do so according to the correct principles which He has so lovingly given us.
As Thomas Jefferson has reputedly said:
“In matters of style, go with the stream;
in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”
JoeL, I think you make some valid comments. All peaceful followers of Christ (and I consider myself one) should ponder the scriptures. I agree 100 percent with you that there are consequences in the scriptures for disobedience to the Lord’s principles. I think the end of Deuteronomy lays it out pretty well as well. And, as I have said, the BoM clearly warns that only defensive wars are acceptable. I spend a tremendous amount of time thinking about what that means for our modern times.
On the one hand, our model is Jesus, who is the Prince of Peace. On the other, we are led by prophets who, while warning us against war in general, have not condemned this specific war. On one hand, the BoM clearly warns that only defensive wars are justified. On the other, the war against terror is a defensive war (in some ways). On one hand, war leads to more war. On the other, war sometimes can lead to victory and peace, at least in the 20th century. On the one hand, war brings death, including the death of innocent civilians. On the other, not acting can sometimes bring the death of many, many more people, including innocent civilians.
I am certain that following the commandments, and putting the Lord first in our lives, will protect us personally. I know that I have been more protected than ever as I follow the commandments, try to perform my callings, try to be a good father and husband and create a Christ-centered home. I have no doubt that this protection will continue for me and my family. But I am also part of a larger community, and I believe I should take a role in that community, and that involves having opinions and trying to influence results in my own small way.
So, this means deciding what is the “best,” “most moral” result for our country. It’s not always easy to know which is the best route, and there are decisions I struggle with on a daily basis. That’s why the world often seems very scary and complicated to me.
Clark,
(#74:)
To begin, let’s be clear that the Soviet Union example of abandoning Afghanistan is not what any American advocates. I recommend that to begin we organize a regional summit that outlines political solutions to the parties involved. What this summit would discuss would be how Iraq is organized, and how the various neighboring nations respond. Frankly, the current Iraqi system is a failure, and will not last long after America leaves. Now, as to what happens after this summit, well, that depends on what is discussed here. However, an important point is for Americans to leave Iraq.
What does Murtha advocate?
http://www.house.gov/list/press/pa12_murtha/pr051117iraq.html
basically the same thing.
Geoff,
(#76)
You bring up how liberals in the 80s pressed for us to overthrow Saddam, and you are right. That was the appropriate time to do so. After all, he had just invaded Iran, and used chemical weapons against the Iranians and the Kurds. Of course Hezbollah had just bombed a Marines barracks in Beirut, and with Hezbollah being supported by Iran, it sure would have looked strange for the United States to be taking out Saddam and basically help the Iranians out.
But what’s even stranger about Reagan’s policy towards both Iran and Iraq is that he funded both sides in the war against each other. WTF?!?!?!?!
Again, what evidence do you have that this will happen?
Mark IV,
(#86)
Woah woah woah, let’s get something clear here. Let’s get these numbers right. I know conservatives like to throw this figure around, but it is a misleading figure. Those are the total deaths in the US military coming from accidents, suicides and natural causes. It is safe to say that the US military has a continued constant rate of the same amount today, IN ADDITION TO the 3200 dead so far in Iraq. In fact, the suicide rate is higher today than in the 90s (go figure!). Further, add the rest of the casualty rate (the injuries, which run over 30,000 at this point) and compare the full casualty numbers to those of 1993-1996, and you see that today’s casualty rate is FAR HIGHER than anything experienced since the Vietnam war.
Please, if you throw misleading numbers out don’t castigate others for using faulty numbers, else you be a hypocrite.
The diplomacy angle helps Democrats, and any Americans inclined to support them, feel better. But I’d rather not pretend it’s any sort of solution to the problem of Iraq.
Iran and Syria’s influence in Iraq is only indirect. Talking to them won’t change anything in Iraq. Solving the Palestinian issue will likewise have no impact in Iraq.
Note, I’m all for talking with Iran, Syria and other regional governments. I think it’s vital for averting a regional war between Iran and Saudi Arabia when (not if) the US pulls out of Iraq. I also think solving the Palestinian issue is vital for the long-term stability of the entire Middle East.
But let’s not kid ourselves, Iraq is far beyond the point that any of those issues would have had any impact in Baghdad. Those issues were only tenuously connected to Iraqi interests, at best. Diplomacy has little or nothing to do with Iraq at this point. Iraq will be solved by the Iraqis primarily, and possibly the Americans and no one else. The situation has deteriorated to the point that there is literally nothing Iran can do about it.
I advocate an almost immediate pullout. I also advocate multilateral diplomacy in the Middle East. But I think it is disingenuous, Dan, to pretend that either of those things have anything to do with fixing Iraq. Such claims are just a way that Democrats make themselves feel better for what is, in essence, an outright betrayal of the Iraqi people. We ruined their government, we crippled their society, and now we demand that they “step up to the plate.”
It’s utterly shameful.
But it has to be done anyway. We have lost this one. We are beaten, whooped, defeated. We don’t have the capability of really helping Iraq anymore either. It’s politically impossible, it’s financially untenable, it’s diplomatically unlikely, and it’s militarily foolhardy.
We ruined Iraq utterly. There is no path ahead for the Iraqis, but civil war and genocide, followed by brutal dictatorship. But we can no longer help Iraq either.
It’s an utter failure and neither Democratic nor Republican talking points can sugar-coat the situation otherwise.
Geoff,
(#96)
it is a good thing you added “(in some ways)” because there is no way the war in Iraq is defensive, no matter how much Bush tries to tie it into the “war on terror.” Al-Qaida was not in Iraq in 2002 or 2003. During that time they were packing their bags in Afghanistan and trekking across the border into Pakistan. We see today that in Pakistan they are forming exactly what we were afraid they might do in Iraq (or so was the argument) that they would find a safe haven and a place to train new recruits.
Were we to have focused solely on our enemy (Al-Qaida) then yes, the “war on terror” would have been a defensive war.
Seth,
(#100)
Trust me, I agree with you that no option is a good option now. We ran out of time with good options about three years ago. However, the answer is still political and not military. I stand by that. The “surge” is proving ineffective (as we predicted it would be). It is time for us to leave Iraq and work toward a political solution (which we won’t like, I might add, but that’s our failure, as you said).
I don’t consider the “War on Terror” to have any further use as a guiding paradigm for US foreign policy.
I’m just worried Dan, that you and many others supporting the Iraq Study Group’s call for diplomacy and many in Congress are using the diplomatic angle as a way of painting a US failure as a primarily Iraqi failure.
“Those blasted Iraqis! They really let us down! They must hate freedom.”
The rhetoric from Congressional Democrats has been very consistently one of:
“We have tried to help these people for long enough. It’s time for the Iraqis to help themselves.”
Which is really an outrageous statement considering what the US did to the country. This kind of rhetoric is really just a smokescreen to try and get us out of Iraq while distracting the American public from the fact that it really is a hands-down defeat for us.
I really don’t want to sugar-coat this.
We need to leave Iraq. And when we do, it will be a shameful betrayal of the Iraqis, and an utter humiliation for the United States. But we still need to leave.
Dan, # 99,
You can see the DoD table I got the 1993-1996 numbers from at this URL:
http://siadapp.dior.whs.mil/personnel/CASUALTY/Death_Rates1.pdf
Sorry for not making it into a link, but I don’t know how to do that without going straight to the moderation queue.
The table only goes through 2004, so I wish there were more current data, but I think it is complete enough for our purposes here. As you can see, the table already accounts for accidents, natural causes, and suicides. The data contradict your assertion that there are far more suicides now than in the 90s. You make a good point, with the number of injured soldiers added in, the picture looks much different. But it is indisputable that during the decades of the 80s and 90s we were willing to tolerate a much higher rate of fatalities in the military DURING PEACETIME than we do now that we are at war. Why is that? Did we just grow a conscience since 2003, or what?
Sorry, the bolded part of my previous comment should read:
But it is indisputable that during the decades of the 80s and 90s we were willing to tolerate a much higher NUMBER of fatalities in the military DURING PEACETIME than we do now that we are at war.
And also – please notice, Dan, that I am able to discuss this without implying that my partners in the conversation are hypocrites. It’s easy, really. You ought to try it.
Seth,
Trust me, I’m not one of those types who blame the Iraqis for not stepping up. The blame for our failures rests entirely on our shoulders. We were warned in numerous ways (including Pentagon war games in 1999 that warned that the chance for a civil war was very high). However, I believe that our best (of all the bad) options rest with diplomacy and politics.
Mark IV (#91): Your position makes sense if we assume that in a fallen world, violence is never appropriate. Perhaps that is your assumption, but I do not share it.
Not specific enough, Mark.
“Violence” is appropriate when we are defending our homes and families from direct attack.
“Violence” is not appropriate when launching preemptive attacks, especially when those attacks are based on the flimsiest of evidence that turns out, in the end, to be completely, utterly, and totally wrong.
I’m still trying to understand how so many Mormons can, on the one hand, read the Sermon on the Mount, and, on the other hand, support preemptive military action by the United States around the world. The compartmentalizing that has to take place in order to simultaneously hold to both positions is simply beyond me.
Mark IV,
You’re probably actually talking about these numbers
http://siadapp.dior.whs.mil/personnel/CASUALTY/WWT.PDF
which Alicia Colon incorrectly used here
http://www.nysun.com/article/48926
which was touted by conservatives as an example of how cowardly liberals are for complaining about a mere 3200 deaths.
However, let’s look at those numbers. In 1993 1,245 soldiers died. 672 died in accidents. 215 from illness. 89 homicide. 246 self-inflicted. and a whopping 10 from hostile action.
In 1994, 1,109 soldiers died. 548 from accidents. 217 from illness. 86 homicide. 231 self-inflicted. and 19 from hostile action.
In 1995, 1055 soldiers died. 572 from accidents. 167 from illness. 59 homicide. 242 self-inflicted. 6 from hostile action.
IN 1996, 1008 soldiers died. 518 from accidents. 180 from illness. 65 homicide. 210 self-inflicted. and 21 from hostile action.
Note the important number there, deaths from hostile action. Note how low they are. There is no comparison between the numbers from the 90s and the numbers from now.
Dan, please tell me what I am missing. It is obvious that more soldiers are dying in hostile action now that they did 10 years ago, that is not surprising. So the numbers shift around in the categories, but the total is as I reported. The total number of military fatalities IS comparable, even though the means of their deaths vary.
And it looks like the military has cut down quite a lot on accidents and suicides, to their credit.
But it is simply indisputable that for several years in the 80s and 90s in peacetime we tolerated higher numbers of military deaths for any reason than we do now, in war. I really am interested in understanding why.
I think this is a key issue. The problem with RealPolitic is that it seems antithetical to the gospel. That is it is founded upon a bedrock of selfishness that I find deeply disturbing. The false dichotomy far too many bring up is that we either have a Kissengeresque RealPolitic or a Bush-like neo-conservativism. There are far more options. Even if, for practical reasons, we can not act, we still should care. The problem is that in far too many places (Darfur, Rwanda) we can act but don’t.
Be that as it may, it still contradicts your assertion. “Getting even” isn’t “minding ones own business.”
How were they illegal? They were part of the cease-fire.
It’s completely different since they were the terms of the cease-fire for a war and agreed upon by both parties. Nothing akin to that was true of Nicaragua. Unless you argue that treaties and cease-fire negotiates are all irrelevant.
There’s no doubt Switzerland was walking a difficult line. However it’s also true they collaborated with the Germans which is not speculation. Consider all the Jews with money in Swiss banks that were taken. The Swiss worked with the Germans in terms of the “Ayrianization” efforts. The Swiss also were significant in laundering money for the German war effort. None of this is controversial information.
It is true that the Swiss mobilized their army after the invasion of Poland and there were German plans for an invasion. However it seems that the while one big issue was the difficulty of invasion the Swiss were trying to placate the Germans to avoid an invasion.
It’s not hard to understand. He wanted both players weakened and occupied. It was part and parcel of the RealPolitic of the cold war. One of the things Reagan did that I’m not happy about although it is completely understandable. I believe the strategic term is “divide and conquer.”
I’ll address your point about Murtha later. If you agree with him. The issue is that the regional meeting (which I actually do advocate) seems independent of the leaving. The issue is what the leaving would do. You seem to have the dream that the regional conference would somehow magically make the effects disappear.
Mark IV, military accident levels during peacetime do get attention, including newspaper coverage and safety stand downs. Preparing to fight is itself a hazardous undertaking, though.
What sort of clear threat to life is an ex-president?
Mark,
(#116)
The problem is that the 3200 number accounts only for “hostile actions” in Iraq, and not for the military worldwide, whereas the 4400 from the 1990s accounts for total military deaths worldwide from 1993-1996. So the numbers are not comparable. A more comparable number is to compare the deaths due to “hostile actions” between 2003-2006 and compare them to the “hostile actions” in 1993-1996.
From 1993-1996 there were 56 deaths due to hostile actions
From 2003-2006 there were 3100 deaths due to hostile actions in Iraq alone, not counting anywhere else (including Afghanistan).
Now, I assume the the rest of the numbers are generally constant (as the chart shows they tend to be quite constant), that means that the overall deaths in the military worldwide between 2003-2006 will probably be closer to 8000, or double the amount in comparison to 1993-1996.
Ms. Colon misrepresented the numbers in her New York Sun article, and as such should be discredited and no longer paid attention to.
As to my comment about hypocrisy, the reason I brought it up is because you scoffed at Curtis for presenting the Lancet numbers of casualties among Iraqis (which they claim is around 600,000), yet you present yourself some misleading numbers. Be sure of your numbers before you scoff at others and their numbers, that’s all I’m saying.
Clark,
(#117
I generally agree with Murtha. I think his points about how an American presence in Iraq stifles Iraq’s ability to progress are pretty accurate. The real issue about troop presence in Iraq is very simple: just what is their mission there? I think we still don’t have a clear goal outlined and as such, we keep making things worse by the very fact that we are there. I believe in the principle of small and simple things bringing about great things (for good as well as for evil). As such there is a massive difference between two very small things. When American soldiers come to an Iraqi home they have two options: they can knock on the door, or they can knock the door down. The fundamental difference between these two small and simple options is the key to Iraq. The longer our military acts aggressively against Iraqi citizens (irrespective of who we think is an insurgent or not), the more we shoot ourselves in the foot. However, on the other hand, the more doors we knock on, the more respect we build with the local population (irrespective of who we think is an insurgent or not). The fundamental problem in Iraq right now is that we are treating Iraqis as enemies (again, the question of who is an insurgent should be thrown out the window), rather than helping them build their nation as it can best represent all factions. Do you honestly think that the more Sunni “insurgents” we kill the more Sunnis will want to participate in the governance of “Iraq” as we know it? Do you honestly think that going in to Sadr City (which happens to be right now a very calm area, because the Sadr Army has generally agreed to participate with this new security push—they know most of this security push will be anti-Sunni, so they will just sit back and watch America do their work for them) and moving against the Sadr Army will keep Shi’ites from getting even more inflamed against Americans?
The answer is not military. The answer is political. The sooner Americans learn this, the quicker we might find an acceptable solution. I don’t think it is the best solution (the best solution was to not go in in the first place—and the second best solution, upon going in, was to go in with at least 500,000 troops, not disband the Iraqi army, and only partially de-Baathify Iraq’s political structure), but I do think the best of the bad options lie in regional participation and assistance, not in American military “surges.”
Mark 4,
The choice of the baseline is no problem at all. If Saddam was on his best behavior, this shows all the more how many more deaths are due explicitly to reasons relating to our invasion. If the baseline is x at its best, then anything more than that will be significant. During one of Saddam’s bad years, you could have done the same survey to find out how much above baseline deaths were caused by Saddam himself with the same level of accuracy. This does not constitute a cooking of the numbers.
So the editor of the Lancet says the study is politically motivated? What study is not politically motivated? It makes no difference what the motivation as long as the methodology is solid.
The death certificate thing is a herring. Obviously the government doesn’t keep good records of its death certificates, so we can’t rely on the government numbers, especially when this very statistically significant survey shows the government to be off by a factor of 10.
It is occurring to me that you have no arguement against the statistical methodology of the study, which is not surprising since no serious epidemiologist has come out with a good arguement against the study either. In fact, the majority of the community in the field is supportive of the study. They know you can’t argue with the kind of numbers dealt with in the study.
Again, if you can’t show me where they went wrong statistically, your arguements hold no water. The best estimate stands at 655,000 deaths in excess of prewar deaths.
The genocide argument for invasion of Iraq doesn’t work.
Due to the no-fly zones, Saddam’s capability of harming the Kurds or southern Iraqi Shiites was non-existent. The genocides happened either before the no-fly zones, or happened on a much more limited scale than the arguments generally represent.
That dog won’t bark.
If you want to compare “before and after” figures of death tolls under Saddam and under the US occupation, you must limit yourself to death tolls under no-fly zone Iraq. The averages will probably show that Iraqis generally were better off under a muzzled Saddam than under the US occuupation.
Anarchy is almost always more terrible than a tyrant. A dictatorship is being subject to the whims of one man. Anarchy is being subject to the whims of anyone with a gun.
The no-fly zones were not part of a cease-fire, but an anglo-american interpretation of the UN agreement at the end of the war.
Anarchy can be considered an investment for the future. Tyrants are tyrants for life.
Surely things were better before 1776 than during the revolution.
I think technology has largely made it impossible for a nation’s own people to overthrow tyranny and institute democracy, citizenship, and inalienable rights.
addrax,
Can you expound on that, and why you think technology has made it impossible for revolutions to occur.
Well addrax, a lot of top Chinese Communist officials hope you are wrong and that a “prudent amount of tyranny” paired with gradual liberalization will yield a better return on investment.
Similarly a lot of Africans probably think you’re smoking crack. They’re still waiting for their return on investment.
Oh, and the American Revolution was not “anarchy.” Or anything remotely resembling it.
1. surveillance
All the advantages of being close to someone without the drawbacks. To the tyrant, the world feels like a much smaller place, no one can hide from the tyrant. To the serf, the world is larger and the serf’s information about the world is controlled by the tyrant.
2. intelligence
Keeping a database on all the people who have the ability to hurt the tyrant and those that are likely to oppose the tyrant isn’t hard. It’s not hard to profile probable enemies.
3. weaponry
Before guns, tyrants had the upper hand. The standard rifle and even the machine gun brought about an equalization. With tanks, fighters, missiles, etc., tyrants again have the upper hand.
As you may recall, there was already a lot of talk of how U.S. economic actions were killing Iraqi children before we sent the army to topple their government. This had some bearing leaning me toward invasion; if we were going to kill Iraqis whether we invaded or not, then let’s do the thing right and get it done so we can quit killing them.
When opponents of military action call for diplomacy, I’m skeptical they really mean it, because they seem just as opposed to any non-military action that comes along.
addrax,
thank you for expounding. however, I’m having trouble with your statement that technology has made it “impossible” for a people to overthrow tyranny when that is exactly what occurred in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, even though the Soviet Union was the second most powerful country on the planet. How many countries revolted against leaders who espoused that ideology? Heck, even China came close to such a revolution!
John,
As one who opposed this action, I can attest that I was not opposed to “any non-military action” that comes along, and frankly, I cannot think of anyone who was opposed to the war who also opposed any non-military action. Perhaps you should clarify by what you consider “non-military action” because those opposed to the war certainly preferred that America resort to non-military actions instead of the war.
I did not say it was. I was only pointing out that sometimes it requires things getting worse for them to get better. Tyranny is a sort of local maxima.
Oxymoron in my book. This sounds like a conservative approach to instituting democracy, citizenship, and inalienable rights.
I think there is something to what you say. However on the other hand there are also obvious differences. There is no way, for instance, a military option could work in N. Korea due to the geography. (Most of the major S. Korean cities are within shelling distance of N. Korean troops – and N. Korea would attack before the US could increase troop levels)
The biggest difference with Iraq was that there was an opportunity that simply wasn’t there with other nations. Of course Bush screwed this up in a rush to attack and a weakness of diplomacy and international persuasion.
As to Sudan or many other African countries – they were both more difficult (a far more uneducated populace) and with less of a compelling need. (Recall the impetus behind the neo-con ideals – democracy in the mideast would decrease the influence of Islamic terrorists)
Dan, in the case of Iraq, I mean the embargo on their oil sales. Were you opposed to that?
In this case no.
And of course there was no outside influence on that one. 🙂
Also, I said largely impossible. Largely, meaning for the most part.
http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?gwp=13&s=largely
John,
No, I was not opposed to an embargo on their oil sales. Economic sanctions have had a more successful track record than invasions. Libya’s turn, for example, was due to the economic sanctions the international community placed on it, and the lure by oil companies to Libya to let go of its terrorist ways.
addrax,
Technically speaking nothing can be “largely impossible.” Either it is impossible or it isn’t impossible. Perhaps the better word for you to use would have been “improbable.”
Of course there was. However, you didn’t take outside influences into account in your point (re: #129). In that point you merely talked about internal revolts. Does the influence from outside increase the probability of revolution vs when a people are left alone and have to revolt from within?
Clark: “Even if, for practical reasons, we can not act, we still should care. The problem is that in far too many places (Darfur, Rwanda) we can act but don’t.”
I agree with this sentiment. However, I think our complicity in Vietnam or Iraq or what-have-you ought to bring to bear a strong sense of responsibilty on our part for doing all we can to resolve the problem.
Yes Jack, but Iraq is not our only concern.
We also have obligations for the stability of the Pacific Rim, the Indian subcontinent, former Soviet eastern Europe, and to a lesser extent, Africa and Latin America. To say nothing of unfinished business in Afghanistan. We owe just as much to the Afghanis as the Iraqis. Our military capacity is needed to reassure and stabilize in all those theaters. We also need diplomatic sway to influence the course of these nations. Sway which is currently being squandered in Iraq.
To abandon Iraq is an inexcusable betrayal. But it is necessary if we wish to meet our larger obligation to world stability.
Like it or not, we have to get out of there and accept the ugly consequences, whatever they may be.
Jack (#144), I agree. Americans have an attitude that if we screw up our duty is to walk away. We’re the ultimate in self-centeredness and short attention spans. Even if you think we screwed up in Iraq it is our responsibility and we can’t walk away from it. (I don’t have time tonight to address Murtha who I believe is doing this)
Seth (#145), certainly we have responsibilities in those other places but because of our actions in Iraq we have more and deeper responsibilities there. As Colin Powell said in perhaps a prophetic way, if you break it you fix it.
I’m a pragmatist Clark. We are far past “fixing.” What we are about now is damage control.
Clark,
(#146)
He’s not recommending that we “walk away from Iraq,” Clark. He’s recommending we shift our focus from military operations to political solutions. He’s right. Bush is wrong.
Curtis, # 126,
The baseline issue IS a problem because we don’t actually know the rate of death per 1,000 population in Iraq, pre-invasion. Estimates range from 5 (the number Lancet uses) and 10.5, which the U.N. favors. Sure, Saddam self-reported about 5/1000 and the CIA believed him. If you choose to accept that number, you have placed yourself in the curious position of believing the CIA about the death rate but not WMD. So, the methodology, as good as it might be, is only as good as the material it starts with. Garbage in, garbage out.
Mr. Roberts had political motivations with this study, therefore he is not an unbiased observer.
I remain unable to understand your devotion to The Sacred Phd. Peer Review process. Consider these words:
“The mistake, of course, is to have thought that peer review was any more than a crude means of discovering the acceptability—not the validity—of a new finding. Editors and scientists alike insist on the pivotal importance of peer review. We portray peer review to the public as a quasi-sacred process that helps to make science our most objective truth teller. But we know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong.”
Curtis, those are the words of Tim Horton, editor of Lancet. If that is what he thinks of the process, why should you or I think any more highly of it than he?
If you want to believe the Lancet study, you HAVE to accept the idea that the Iraqui Govt. issues death certs at least 80% of the time, because that is what the Lancet study shows.
There actually is a silver lining to your acceptance of the Lancet study. If casualties among civilians in Iraq continue to occur at the same rate that Lancet claims for the next 24 months, the war will end of necessity, because every man, woman, and child in Iraq will be dead or injured. That is, of course, a ridiculous assumption, but that is where Lancet is going.
Again, I reject the claims that suggest 550,000 civilian casualties since 2003.
Dan, OK, I think I understand your frustration. Anyone who says that there have only been 3200 military deaths since 2003 is wrong, because that number only accounts for those killed in hostile action. I can agree with that, and, based on the table I linked to, we can see that for 2003 and 2004, the total deaths for those two years comes to about 3200. So, we are say in saying that total military deaths since 2003 are probably between 6500 and 8000.
I hope you can also agree with me that 1600 to 2000 deaths in the military per year (that is what we have had since 2003) is not out of the ordinary when viewed in the context of 1980-present. Some of our years when we were at peace actually produced more military deaths than any single year during our war in Iraq.
Mark,
Right, only if you account for the military deaths in Iraq alone, but unfortunately that does not paint an accurate portrayal of military deaths around the world. The reason for my frustration is that someone like Ms. Colon downplayed the number of American soldiers dead due to hostile actions by claiming that more American soldiers died “during peace time.” We should never downplay the deaths of American soldiers at the hands of our enemies. 3200 Americans died in hostile action between 2003 and 2006. 56 Americans died in hostile action between 1993 and 1996.
During “peace time” the average number of American military personnel dying is about 1500 per year with 5 to 10 of them dying from hostile action. Iraq and Afghanistan have increased that number to about 700 or 800 deaths from hostile actions per year.
And I understand that these numbers don’t yet match those from Vietnam or from World War II. There are a number of reasons for this for which someone like Ms. Colon does not wish to mention in her article (or conservatives who jump on these numbers). The military has had a remarkable improvement in safety and training of its forces, and of course the medical advancements over these past forty years have saved countless lives otherwise lost. However, when the enemy averages about 900 attacks against US forces PER WEEK, the numbers should not be played around with for political purposes.
That’s actually long been the Bush position. The trick is in how to do it. Murtha is all about “political solutions” without the military enabling them. Something I’m not convinced is possible. Recall Bush wanted the military out within three months of the invasion and has long talked about politics. His strategy and his failure was in just “holding the course” and using the military minimally in hopes of political solutions within Iraq. Clearly that was a failure. We had to maintain the peace and put pressure on the politic figures.
While Murtha feels that withdrawal would put force on the Iraqis to come to an agreement whereas he feels now they don’t have to I think he is horribly naive to think a pull out would accomplish this. Not even the Baker plan went that far.
Mark 4,
“Curtis, those are the words of Tim Horton, editor of Lancet. If that is what he thinks of the process, why should you or I think any more highly of it than he?”
Because I am somewhat acquainted with statistical analysis. I don’t care what the peer review process is like. There has been no statistical criticism of the Lancet report that holds any water. By pure statistical probability, getting 550 or so deaths out of 12,800 people interviewed in a randomly selected cross-section, leads to 400,000-800,000 deaths any way you look at it. You haven’t convinced me otherwise unless you tell me there was something wrong with their method (which isn’t the case).
The baseline is not an issue since the death rate was confirmed in their study. The death rate pre-invasion can not be absolutely known, any more than the death rate post-invasion can be truly known. However, the death rate was arrived at using the same methods pre and post and not by relying on UN or Saddam or CIA data. If something was wrong with the statistical methods employed in arriving at the post-war death rate (which you have not even attempted to prove) then I would say that the pre-invasion rate arrived at was also faulty.
You have a long way to go to prove to anyone that knows a bit about statistical analysis that the study is wrong in arriving at the 650,000 number.
Also, please avoid exaggeration in the future. There’s no way a death rate of around 15/1000 per year can kill off 25 million people in the next two years.
Curtis,
Also, please avoid exaggeration in the future.
I think it’s funny that somebody who endorses this study would object to exaggeration, but you are correct, I did exaggerate. Instead of two years, it would actually take 4 years to kill or injure everybody who was alive in Iraq in March, 2003. The good news is that since only men are fighting there, the war will actually end much sooner, based on Lancet’s numbers. Please follow along (I know you can do it Curtis, you have all that stat analysis training):
1. Estimated population of Iraq, 2003 – 27,000,000
2. 57% of the population is over age 14, divided evenly male/female, leaving us an adult male population of about 7,700,000. (27,000,000 x .57 / 2)
3. In 2004, Lancet reported 100,000 civilian dead. In 2006, they reported 655000 dead. So, between 10/04 and 10/06, Lancet claims 550,000 dead, of which 60% were adult males. So we have 393,000 adult males killed (650,000 x .6).
4. Adult males are now being killed at the rate of 165,000/year. (550,000 x .6 / 2)
5. We know that for every U.S. fatality there are 10 debilitating injuries. Let’s apply the same rule of thumb to Iraqi civilians. They have no body armor, flak jackets, or kevlar helmets, so it is probably much higher, but 10 is an easy number.
6. One year from October 2006, there will be 558,000 dead Iraqi males. (393 + 165)
7. By October 2007, Seven months from now, 558,000,000 Iraqi males, or 72% of the men in that country, will be either killed or seriously injured.
8. This fall the war will end because there are no men under the age of 55 around to fight it.
This is a stupid conclusion, don’t you agree? But that is what we need to believe if we are going to buy this study.
Curtis, the more you wave you stats training at me the more I feel sorry for you. Anybody, stat trained or not, should be able to smell this before they step in it.
Item # 7 in comment 154 should read:
7. By October 2007, Seven months from now, ,b>5,580,000 Iraqi males, or 72% of the men in that country, will be either killed or seriously injured.
Seth R. #157:
As a registered Libertarian, I would posit that there are other political parties and philosophies that are much more enamored with “Fortress America” than Libertarians (notably the Constitution Party and paleoconservatives like Pat Buchanan).
Libertarians do not believe in isolationism, just a (much) more modest foreign policy and an end to the American military as a global police force. Libertarians are also big on free trade and more liberal immigration policies, which things are hardly isolationist.
Reference:
http://www.lp.org/issues/platform_all.shtml#iv
Clark,
(#152)
I must be blind then because I don’t see Bush pressing any kind of real diplomacy. In fact, in the region as a whole, he just had Rice tell the Israelis to not even dare consider talking to Syria!
Take the “surge” for example. This is supposed to be a “crackdown” on violent groups, such as Shi’ite death squads (including the Mahdi Army) as well as Sunni insurgents. Just how does the “surge” bring these groups together to find a political solution? Does not going after the Mahdi Army exacerbate the problem because after all, al-Sadr’s supporters have a big block of the parliament. Angering them doesn’t seem like a very wise political decision, irrespective of how good of a decision that might be militarily (though I believe that even militarily it is a stupid move, like putting an open hand in a hornet’s nest).
Mark 4,
Alright then. If you want to play that way I suppose I could answer your points a little bit.
First of all, when you hear of a bomb going off in Bagdad, you might hear of 50 deaths and 80 injured. The number of injured is not even 2 times as high as the number killed let alone 10 times. I don’t think you will see 72% of the men in Iraq killed or injured if you look at the 13.3/1000 death rate per year, over the next 7 months as you suggest. Your assumption is kind of wacked out.
Now to turn the tables a bit. Please regard the following quote:
“National Defense Magazine, Col. Robert A. Fitzgerald, the Marine Corps’ head of aviation plans and policy, was quoted as saying that, in 2006, “Marine rotary-wing aircraft flew more than 60,000 combat flight hours, and fixed-wing platforms completed 31,000. They dropped 80 tons of bombs and fired 80 missiles, 3,532 rockets and more than 2 million rounds of smaller ammunition.”
This is 2006 alone. Now assuming that the Lancet numbers are correct, 78,000 Iraqis have been killed since 2003 aerial attacks. That would mean that 20,228 people (78,000 deaths/3.5 years) were killed in 2006 by this massive amount of artillery. Sounds about right.
However, if you reduce that by a factor of 10, going by IBC numbers, only 2,023 people were killed by over 2 million rounds of ammunition, 3,532 rockets, 80 missiles, 80 tons of bombs, and 91,000 combat hours of flights. That means that for every person killed we used 0.04 missiles, 80 lbs of bombs, 44 flight hours and 988 rounds of ammunition.
Very… very… unlikely.
Don’t forget that the Iraqi Minister of Health himself has disagreed with the IBC numbers last year when he said that he thought that about 150,000 people had died violent deaths since the end of the war.
Again, you should hardly find these numbers unbelieveable. Passive surveilance only caught 5% of deaths in Guatemala during turbulent periods. The IBC numbers are even less than passive surveilance as they only use western press reports for their numbers.
Apparently everyday Iraqi’s are not too surprised about the large numbers reported in the Lancet study either. Read the words of this woman who lives in Bagdad:
“We literally do not know a single Iraqi family that has not seen the violent death of a first or second-degree relative these last three years. Abductions, militias, sectarian violence, revenge killings, assassinations, car-bombs, suicide bombers, American military strikes, Iraqi military raids, death squads, extremists, armed robberies, executions, detentions, secret prisons, torture, mysterious weapons – with so many different ways to die, is the number so far fetched?”
“There are Iraqi women who have not shed their black mourning robes since 2003 because each time the end of the proper mourning period comes around, some other relative dies and the countdown begins once again.”
I’m looking at patterns in history.
If you observe the rise and fall of nations, you will see certain trends.
The periods of greatest world stability and prosperity have always been when there was a single dominant hegemon that enforced peace and intimidated the neighboring smaller nations enough that no one dared start a ruckus with their neighbors, no matter how much they disliked them.
Rome would be the perfect example. The period of British world dominance is another example.
The idea of a dominant hegemon works for the same reason a town police force is a good idea. Without the coercive power of the Leviathan (to borrow Hobbes’ term), it’s every man for himself. You can’t trust your neighbor. He has just as much power as you do, and you have no guarantees that he won’t use it against you.
However, with a policeman in the neighborhood, everyone trusts each other more. You don’t have to worry about what your neighbor will do as much because if he tries to rob or harm you, the coercive power of the police will be brought against him.
The same is true of nations.
This is pretty amazing. In talking about the numbers of people that have died in Iraq since the war began, I happened upon this recent IPSOS Iraq war poll wherein 1002 people were phoned (side-note to Mark 4: see how we use much smaller cross-sections of a population to gauge an accurate view of American’s opinion?) in the US. Here’s the flabbergasting point:
16. Just your best guess, how many Iraqi civilians have died in Iraq since the war began there in March 2003?
–Fewer than 1,000, 8 percent
–1,001 to 5,000, 24 percent
–5,001 to 10,000, 20 percent
–10,001 to 50,000, 21 percent
–50,001 to 100,000, 11 percent
–100,001 to 250,000, 6 percent
–More than 750,000, 5 percent
–Not sure, 4 percent
MEDIAN — 9,890
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Iraq-Poll-Method.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
The average person thinks that less than 10,000 civilians have died in Iraq since the war began. Wow. That’s not even close to the Iraq Body Count number that Pres. Bush identifies with. What would happen if the average joe actually figured out that the number was more likely 2/3 of a million?
Curtis, # 160,
Your assumption is kind of wacked.
Nope, not at all. The following statement appeared in the Christian Science Moniter on August 29, 2006:
“At this writing, 2,955 American service men and women have been killed (2,622 in Iraq and 333 in Afghanistan), and 20,174 have been wounded.”
I don’t think it is a stretch at all to assume 10 wounded civilians for every fatality.
Curtis, I think we’ve reached the point where neither of us is going to budge. My position is that the study is ridiculous on it’s face, and if I understand your position, it is that the methodology of the study was rock solid and therefore inspires lots of confidence in its conclusions. Either way, the carnage goes on. I’ll look forward to a time when we can have a conversation about something happier.
dude, can you guys fix your comment thingy….it’s getting frustrating when you type something and it tells you your comments are invalid, because you don’t know what makes it invalid. What’s up with that?!?!
Seth,
I have pretty strong reservations about your thesis. Having one hegemon has not produced world stability nor peace, nor has been the reason for prosperity. First of all from 1945 to 1990, there was not one hegemon. The Soviet Union was powerful enough to be considered a superpower, and as such shared the throne with America. In fact much of America’s foreign policy and economic policy was to counter the strength of the Soviet Union.
Rome is in no way a perfect example of “stability” in its region. How often was Rome at war with some nation? How many of its neighbors survived and thrived in “peace?” Where is Carthage today?
A hegemon, by design, doesn’t last long as the sole hegemon. The fact that it is the most powerful tends to turn everybody against her. No, a hegemony is not the best design for peace, stability, or even prosperity.
Great Britain
dude that’s the strangest thing. I can’t use the words B r i t i s h E m p i r e apparently. It says those words are invalid. Please fix this guys. I can’t have a good debate if words I use are invalid!
Dan, I’m aware there were wars during the periods of both e m p i r e s. That does not invalidate my point that hegemony produced periods of RELATIVE stability.
The Cold War validates my point rather than challenges it. The bipolar world of the USSR vs. the US created a high degree of world instability. It’s just that we didn’t see it directly in the US and Western Europe. The 20th century has been the bloodiest in world history. While the US and Russia didn’t dare attack each other directly, they both waged countless proxy wars throughout the 3rd world.
World War I came about because of a decline in B r i t i s h hegemony accompanied by a rise in roughly equal competing “great powers.” World War II occurred within a similar power vacuum.
I think we can expect a similar holocaust to result from a situation of US decline accompanied by emergent “great powers” like China, India, and Russia as well. A whole laundry list of nations are becoming more beligerent and aggressive as a result of US weakness. Russian President Vladimir Putins recent incendiary remarks are just a small example. Furthernore, traditional allies such as Japan and the EU can be expected to start charting their own independent courses.
You’re right about the commenting thing Dan. That is irritating. I was wondering what the problem was.
By the way, a dominant hegemon is often considered by everyone to be in their own best interests. As for it not lasting… Nothing I know of in this world ever lasts. I’m not sure that invalidates what I’m saying.
Seth,
my mistake. I had forgotten my studies on theories of hegemonic stability.
We’re definitely in a hegemonic decline right now, akin to the days before World War I. I know lots of people who dislike Bush sometimes compare him to Hitler, but the comparison is wrong. The better comparison is with Bismark who thought he could win wars easily when he didn’t take into account the fundamental altering of the battlefield with the introduction of the machine gun.
This thread is another example of why the Church formally stays out of (most) politics.
Well, remember that Bismark’s mistake was shared by France, Russia, and Great Britain. No one really appreciated the true impact of modern weaponry on warfare.
This incidentally, is the main reason we absolutely cannot afford another hegemonic decline (although it is ultimately inevitable, I’d wager). Limited wars were possible in the 18th and 19th centuries. They are not possible between major powers in the 21st century (just like they weren’t in the 20th century).
Here is a short list of ugly possibilities, should US hegemony truly go into decline:
-Open warfare with accompanying territorial grabs between China and Russia.
-A shooting war between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan.
-Hostilities between China and Japan, with Japan possibly nuclear rearming and Korea and Taiwan caught in between.
-Region-wide warfare between Middle Eastern nations.
-A reignition of warfare in the Balkans, with even more blatant Russian interference.
-Complete meltdown of multi-ethnic societies like Indonesia and India.
-Aggression between Latin American nations.
All of these dogs are currently held in check by the threat of overwhelming US military, economic and diplomatic superiority.
queno,
Can you imagine Elder Monson in General Conference talking about the virtues of hegemonic stability theory?
“Threats were made, incentives were given, national security was had by all…”
Seth,
I doubt your scenario above would occur.
On the other hand, if the US hegemony was gone a long time ago, there would have been 500,000 people less killed in indonesia in 1965.
2-4 million less people killed in the Vietnam war.
600,000 less people killed in our secret bombing of Cambodia.
70,000 less killed in Guatemala after we kicked their president out in the 50’s.
There would have been a lot less deaths in Iraq as we withdrew our support for Saddam.
There would have been 200,000 less deaths in East Timor if we had withdrawn support for Suharto and not stopped UN resolutions against Indonesia in 1975.
There would have been 500,000 kids less than 5 years old who would still be alive in Iraq if we had not undertaken the murderous sanctions against the people.
There would have been much less carnage in Nicaragua if we hadn’t supported the terrorist group called the Contras.
Etc. Etc.
Of course, there would have been wars in some of these places without our help, but in many places, the simple withdrawal of our support would have been sufficient to stop mass murder.
In my mind, our presence around the world is much more detrimental to world peace than it is vital to maintaining stability.
Yes Curtis,
The Soviets would have been ever so much nicer masters of Asia than we were.
We’re getting into gun control issues now, which is a different issue.
In my experience, a shooting homicide is more likely to be an abusive husband shooting his wife than a crazy dude with a shotgun at Trolley Square. Most homicides don’t come from Trolley Square/Columbine-type incidents.
Nothing lasts forever. But that isn’t a good argument for not having a good go of it.
Is a hegemony likely to be more temporary than an isolationist utopia? Somehow I doubt it.
how fascinating. I wonder why the word e m p i r e is an “invalid” word….
Sol, the whole point of my posting in this thread was that the US is overstretching – IN IRAQ. The mishandling of this little adventure is putting at risk the entire US-enforced world stability regime. I’m arguing that the entire neoconservative foreign policy agenda is inherently irresponsible.
Just because I’m advocating a continuation and maintenance of US e m p i r e doesn’t mean I’m advocating wanton and irreponsible imperial adventurism.