Anybody interested in Iraq should read this article in Commentary. Amir Taheri is one of the most knowledgeable people around regarding the actual situation on the ground in Iraq and one of the few who can make an educated comparison of whether or not the country has improved. His conclusion:
Instead of railing against the Bush administration, America’s elites would do better, and incidentally display greater self-respect, to direct their wrath where it properly belongs: at those violent and unrestrained enemies of democracy in Iraq who are, in truth, the enemies of democracy in America as well, and of everything America has ever stood for.
Is Iraq a quagmire, a disaster, a failure? Certainly not; none of the above. Of all the adjectives used by skeptics and critics to describe todays Iraq, the only one that has a ring of truth is messy. Yes, the situation in Iraq today is messy. Births always are. Since when is that a reason to declare a baby unworthy of life?
I would ask anybody who posts on this subject to please read the entire article before commenting. I am not interested in the usual rantings against President Bush and pointed questions regarding WMDs. I actually think the WMD issue is relevant, but not to this particular post. Instead, I’d like us to look at an entirely different issue: when is military intervention appropriate for humanitarian reasons? I also happen to believe that these kinds of questions are more appropriate for true followers of Christ.
The attached article makes a case that Iraq is clearly better off by all objective standards than it was pre-invasion. The economy has nearly doubled in size, unemployment has fallen, businesses are starting, there is more political freedom and freedom of movement, and refugees have stopped pouring out of Iraq, as they often did during Saddam’s reign.
I have mentioned this before, but it is worth discussing it again: the Left in the 1980s to which I belonged constantly wrote and spoke about the necessity of humanitarian military intervention. The big enemy in those days was Realpolitik thinking left over from the bad days of Nixon and Kissinger, and the (sometimes valid) criticism of the Reagan administration was that it didn’t do more to promote a human-rights based foreign policy. Those of us on the Left often said in those days that military intervention against regimes like Iraq and Syria and North Korea would be valid if the goal were to liberate the oppressed. We often held up the successful examples of liberated Japan and Germany and South Korea as evidence.
Well, low and behold, 20 years later the kind of intervention the Left supported in the 1980s somehow became a mistake simply because a Republican president supported it. Which begs the question: what interventions are valid? Are there any times the world’s one superpower should engage itself in military matters on behalf of the downtrodden? And, if you still oppose the Iraq invasion, how do you get over the fact that the country is significantly better off today than it was four years ago?
Once again, if you are going to post, please read the attached article first and stick to the subject of this post. Thanks.
About the article: It seems transparently dishonest in how it maniuplates statistics to come up with what it calls “time-tested indicators.” For example, the article says: “According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, as well as numerous private studies, the Iraqi economy has been doing better than any other in the region.” According to the CIA World Factbook, the Iraqi GDP per person of $3,400 per person lags behind other regional economies, including Egypt ($4,400), Jordan ($4,800), Lebanon ($5,300), Iran ($8,100) and Saudi Arabia ($12,900). Maybe the author only meant economic growth. But the crucial difference is that Iraq’s neighbor’s WEREN’T INVADED in 2003, rendering the comparison meaningless.
Equally surprising is the lack of another important indicator, namely: number of civilians killed in sectarian violence. For the first five months of 2006, that figure is somewhere above 4,000. What’s the corresponding figure for the last half of 2002? You’d think that would be relevant. The reason it’s so easy to persist in opposing the Iraq war is that it seems patently false to say that either Iraq or the US is better off now than before.
The key reason to distrust the article is that it tries to paint the bad news in Iraq as some kind of Bush-hating conspiracy among mainstream news organizations. You’re going to believe one article in a partisan journal instead? That’s not cherry-picking intelligence, it’s cherry-picking ignorance.
Geoff, you write: “Well, low and behold, 20 years later the kind of intervention the Left supported in the 1980s somehow became a mistake simply because a Republican president supported it.” I’m not sure why you think your onetime affiliation with the Left qualifies you to speak for the whole lot of them, when you can’t do it accurately. Do you remember Bosnia? Kosovo? Democratic president leading a humanitarian military mission, Republican senators shrieking and getting the vapors? Opposition to the Iraq war had nothing to do with suspicion of humanitarian intervention because that wasn’t the case that the administration made for war. Lots of people saw in 2002 that the reasons given for war were dishonest, the administration incompetent, and that there were better options if humanitarian relief was a goal. Far from being an ever-dwindling minority, most Americans have now come around to the same view. Why do you think that the last three years has vindicated your support for invading Iraq in any way?
If you want a rule of thumb for when humanitarian military missions are a bad idea, how about this: whenever you have to tie up your entire army for many years in one country to eliminate one dictator, it’s worth looking into other options. There is no shortage of humanitarian missions around the world right now that won’t get done because we’re tied down in Iraq.
Your post and the article seem to invitate us to engage in the sordid moral calculus that is part and parcel with modern warfare. For example, perhaps we are required to ask whether thousands of lives lost on either side of the conflict is worth the 18 percent increase in the value of the Iraqi dinar agsint the US dollar, as cited in the article. Does anyone really presume to know the answer to questions like this? The article mentioned some benefits that have accrued since the Iraqi war, but never weighs these against the costs.
Also, (nearly) all of the costs of this conflict are borne by the US and (nearly) all of the benefits accrue to persons outside of our borders. Shouldn’t this at least be a factor weighing in favor of caution in deciding whether to intervene for humanitarian reasons? (Economists theorize that efficient decisions are reached when the person making the decision is fully informed of the likely costs and benefits and is the one who will realize both the costs and the benefits – in other words, wars create huge externalties, which are almost always inefficient).
Classic liberals and the neoconservatives (who are their heirs) like these kinds of wars because they allow an “enlightened” government to transfer massive amounts of resources to effect the desired results (humanisitic values for liberals and economic cooperation for conservatives) in far off lands that we have no ultimate responsibility for. If we are now to believe, as the article suggests, that this was the only worthwile justification for the Iraq war, don’t we have our own poor to take care of? Every time a still-loyal neoconservative trumpets the fact “schools are being built in Iraq,” I think about how it is that many fewer schools that will be built in our own country.
lief (#2): Could you explain your thinking when you say that clasical liberals favor this kind of war? I’m probably a bit tainted by libertarians (who I think tend to oppose the U.S. involvment in Iraq) in my view of classical liberalism, but my sense is that although classical liberals were against tyrranical government, their view on preemptive interference or military involvement in general is far from clear. On my view, saying neocons are the heirs of classical liberalism is misplaced.
Jonathan, it is nice to see a substantive response to you from one of my posts. Can you name any economic indicators that show that Iraq is NOT better off now than in, say, 2002? Iraq may in fact have lower GDP per capita, but changing that figure may take more than three years, and what matters most is growth in GDP per capita over time, not a one-time snapshot, which you have given.
As for civilian deaths, can you with a straight face claim that the average civilian would prefer Saddam’s rule with all of its fascist elements to what they have today? You might want to try bolstering your arguments with comparisons of civilian deaths in 2006 to, say, civilian deaths caused by Saddam in his various assaults on the Shiites and Kurds over the many years of his rule.
I think the Bosnia comparison is very instructive. There were many Republicans who supported Clinton’s bombing because they recognized the evil face of Milosevic. And they have been proven right. Was it a majority of Republicans? I don’t know. I certainly supported Clinton’s actions against Serbia for the same reasons I supported the war in Iraq — for humanitarian reasons. But if the Republicans who opposed Clinton then were wrong, then that should be a great lesson against rank partisanship in general. I think I remember hearing someplace about “two wrongs not making a right.” And as for what I’ve seen in the last three years, well, I’ll name a few important things: Libya giving up nuclear ambitions, Syria leaving Lebanon, elections in Palestine, Egypt and Afghanistan. In fact, can you name a single Middle Eastern country that is worse off in terms of the democratic process today than it was in 2002? And, as I mention above, for the average Iraqi, life is significantly better than it was in 2002.
As for our entire military being tied down in a humanitarian mission, I seem to recall our military (much larger then as a percentage of our population) being pretty tied down in Korea. And, given the state of North Korea today, it was certainly a good thing for the South Koreans we weren’t as squeamish then about helping people stay free.
Lief, I think you make some interesting points, and I certainly wish other countries worldwide shared our generosity and humanitarian nature. Unfortunately, many of the larger military powers decided against helping. That is to their disgrace. I would like schools to be built in both Iraq and the United States (and elsewhere). Like Robert, I’m confused by your reference to classical Liberals.
Robert (#2) – Sorry, misused the term classical liberalism. I meant foreign policy liberals in the 70s and 80s who opposed the kind of realpolitik thinking that liberals today seem to embrace. In other words, I agree with the model posed by Geoff in the post that neo-cons (on foreign policy) have inherited the former “liberal” posiition.
Neo-conservatism is very much in the tradition of liberal internationalism from Woodrow Wilson to John F. Kennedy. Many of them are direct heirs of a contingent that defected from Left to Right when the Democratic Party took a sharp turn to the Left around 1972, the founders of *Commentary* chief among them.
Here is JFK:
“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
Traditional conservatives have always been skeptical of that kind of blank check idealism.
Also – rather than weighing the costs and benefits of human lives vs. economic benefits to Iraqis to determine whether the war was justified, it may be hepful to look at the opportunity cost of the resources that were spent on the war.
If we are now to believe that the noble purpose of the war had always been to relieve the suffering of the Iraqi people for purely humanitarian reasons, did our leaders consider whether the $80 billion++, or the equivalent soldier hours, could have been used to relieve an even greater amount of suffering elsewhere? Should we have expected them to?
I would like to see someone make a case that the humanitarian dollars were best spent in Iraq as opposed to any other spot on the planet. The fact that this will be difficult to do is evidence to me that there were significant other factors that went into the decision to go to war in Iraq.
To the extent those significant other factors are conveniently ignored now that the only good news is on the humanitarian front (and thin, at that – the author had to dig up pathetic statistics about increases in the value of the dinar, which is the economic equivalent of when penny stocks increase by 20%) – we will not have learned any lessons about whether to go to war the next time around.
Sorry for the serial comments, but to take a stab at the central question-
when is military intervention appropriate for humanitarian reasons?
I’ve always thought the story of Nephi and Laban provides interesting insights to this question. Nephi has some trpidation about killing Laban, but the angel says that it’s OK for one person to die if saves an entire nation from unbelief.
So, it is certainly possible, that from a gospel perspective, humanitarian wars are justified. The question is – who gets to decide? Can we make the moral calculus ourselves (and start slaughtering the way if there is some greater good) – or can only God make that determination, and command us to kill only when he deems it to be appropriate.
In other words, the sticking point for me is that Nephi didn’t decide to kill Laban and God told him is was justified later, God had to tell him it was OK in that circumstance.
The only justification for war is national security or the safety and security of friends, allies, and innocent victims. If we were interested in purely humanitarian ends, war is exactly the wrong way to go about it. That is a weakness of Wilsonian internationalism.
We may truly and properly hope that the judgment of history will be that this was on balance a positive step for the Iraqi people, but disturbing the peace can never be justified on that basis – it can only be justified in terms of something we cannot measure, that which is relative to the long term life and death consequences of not acting at all.
How is this an LDS Church-related post? Or is this blog turning into just another political screed, of which we have too many already?
lief, post 7: amen.
Mark Butler, post 9: amen.
Civi, post 10: amen.
Alma, “post” 31:5: amen.
“When is military intervention appropriate for humanitarian reasons?”
When God tells the prophet that it’s required to do so…
Has we forgotten about “Thou shalt not kill”?
From the article:
“What all of this demonstrates is that, contrary to received opinion, Operation Iraqi Freedom was not an attempt to impose democracy by force. Rather, it was an effort to use force to remove impediments to democratization, primarily by deposing a tyrant who had utterly suppressed a well-established aspect of the countrys identity. It may take years before we know for certain whether or not post-liberation Iraq has definitely chosen democracy. But one thing is certain: without the use of force to remove the Baathist regime, the people of Iraq would not have had the opportunity even to contemplate a democratic future.”
I know this excerpt doesn’t speak for everyone who supported the war, but I find it to be a dangerous opinion. It makes it sound like we went in and got rid of Saddam because we could, only to make Iraq our own political ant-farm. ‘Hey, let’s see if democracy works for them…’
So, to tie this into the question asked here, I don’t think a ‘military intervention to help the downtrodden’ is justified when the system that replaces the dictator is not one that the downtrodden are asking for. I like democracy quite a bit, but I have to admit one of the reasons it was able to take hold in this country is the faith that the Founding Fathers put into it. They wanted it, they sought after it and they implemented it (generally speaking; I know some claim they had ulterior motives). Such is not the case in Iraq, from what I’ve heard.
(although I disagree with it generally, thanks for posting the article, Geoff; it presented some interesting information and viewpoint that I hadn’t considered before)
Geoff,
I have no problem with the article really. Seems like a sensible analysis of things.
Are the Iraqis better off than under Saddam? Depends on which Iraqis we’re talking about. Before, we had tyranny of a dictator. Now we have the tyranny of fear and uncertainty (from the lawless criminals). Certainly, the Kurds are better off.
Should we stay in Iraq? Yes. But not mainly because it’s good for the Iraqis, although that’s very important.
We need to stay because America’s credibility is at stake here. This isn’t just a prideful reaction. It’s pragmatic. A lot of the viability of the international order is riding on the continued legitimacy of American world-dominance. When the US looks stupid, world security and prosperity suffers in many different ways. Some small, some significant. You think Iran would be acting half so tough if they didn’t know we’re currently crippled by Iraq occupation?
I don’t think getting involved with Iraq, when we did, and the way we did was a good idea. But we’re there now. And we’d darn well better succeed. It WILL be an utter disaster if we fail.
The problem is, I’m worried that we are going to fail. It’s easy for someone like me (one who is utterly disgusted with Bush, the corrupt Republican toads backing him, and the spineless Democratic losers who were supposed to be opposing him) to get some sick pleasure out of watching Bush utterly make a fool of himself. But when I stop to actually think about it … no. As much as I despise Bush, I still want him to succeed. Because he’s MY President and he’s leading MY country. And as a Mormon, I have a lot riding on the success of the United States. The world (not just Americans) would suffer terribly if the US ever collapsed completely and I want this American thing to succeed.
But we are very bad way internationally right now and I am very worried about the future. Whether the Iraqis are happy or not is the least of our worries.
This will sound really harsh, but hear me out.
Who cares if the Iraqis succeed or not?
Well, certainly the Iraqis. And so do I, and so do you, to some extent or another.
But does anyone care if things are happy in Uzbekistan? President Karimov has been just as bad, if not worse than Saddam ever since the Soviet Union collapsed. Jailing opposition politicians, torturing them, their families, and 100s of others. Massacring protestors.
Incidentally, he claims he’s fighting the “war on terror” and these are “Muslim terrorists” (that’s his word for college professors, independant journalists, student protestors, and basically anyone who disagrees with him).
Does anyone care about Sudan? THOSE people are suffering far more than the Iraqis EVER did.
I don’t see anyone jumping for a massive military deployment to Sudan.
Haiti? North Korea? Zimbabwe? Congo? Burma? Turkmenistan? Tibet? Africa in general?
Honestly, does anyone really give a damn about these people? Where is the US military for these people?
What about Afghanistan? The US military is still there and people have been acting like the country doesn’t exist for the past two years.
So the article is nice and all. I’m glad the Iraqis are doing better (assuming they are doing better). But so what? What does this have to do with anything?
The US policy has never been to change the world via US military invasion. We aren’t on a quest to make a better world “one fallen dictator at a time.”
Why? Because we can’t. The US simply isn’t that strong. We don’t have the resources to go after all the sleazy evil dictators in the world. Iraq is shaping up to be a perfect object lesson of why “military conquest for humanity” is just a flat-out bad idea. And I don’t even have to point to anything other than basic human betterment to show this.
We were doing fine with Afghanistan. The country had a real future under US control. But we lost focus and went on an irresponsible excursion to Iraq before our work in Afghanistan was finished. We had no business taking on another major military committment until we fixed Afghanistan.
Now, because of horribly unrealistic expectations with Iraq, not only is the success of the Iraqi people uncertain, but Afghanistan could easily fall apart as well. By taking on the Iraqi people in addition to the Afghans, we jeopardized the future of both. Right now, it’s a real possibility that the US will have to pull out of both countries. And it would be an absolute disaster for both peoples.
Ever hear the story of the man who was so generous to his neighbors that he neglected his wife and kids, eventually lost all his money, went bankrupt and ended up begging off those same neighbors?
Ladies and gentlemen. I give you, the Neoconservatives!
Bush and co. and the neoconservative intellectuals who pushed this grand crusade against lawlessness have jeopardized our military capacity to project power in every corner of the globe.
What would happen if North and South Korea started shooting?
The Japanese are already re-militarizing because they realize we’re too weak to do anything about it.
What if India and Pakistan start shooting?
Yugoslavia?
What if China invades Taiwan?
What if the Phillipines, Vietnam, China, Taiwan (and Indonesia for good measure) start fighting over oil exploration in the South China Sea?
What if Turkey invades Kurdish Iraq? Or Iran for that matter?
What if Japan and China reopen hostilities?
What if Russia moves against the Caucasus?
What about Russia and China in general?
And those are just the potential military problems. I haven’t even started on the sort of diplomatic and economic problems that a weak US could lead to.
Too much can go horribly wrong in the world for the Neoconservatives to be screwing around with our limited military resources.
No, the happiness of the Iraqis is the least of my worries. In the big world, scheme, Iraqi freedom and prosperity really isn’t that important.
But US success in Iraq has become supremely important, because if we fail, it will destabilize the situations in ALL of the areas I mentioned above. But right now, the US has gotten so politically and economically beaten up over Iraq that success is no longer certain.
Aargh!
The whole thing makes me so mad … If I ever meet Pres. Bush, I’ll have to restrain myself from smacking him.
He has been an absolute moron and risked everything we’ve gained in the past 50 years. I just hope the gamble pays off, irresponsible as it was.
Seth, I generally agree with you when it comes to how you view things currently. But I don’t understand your point about how we must stay in order not to fail in order to maintain security/legitimacy worldwide. You mention near the beginning that Iran is acting the way it is partially because they know we have one hand tied behind our back per Iraq involvement. Granted, limiting our presence in Iraq to the bare essentials, or withdrawing completely, would result in chaos there, but I thought your point was ‘who cares what happens there; we need to do what’s best for us.’ Regardless of any other consequences, it seems like withdrawing, and thereby freeing up however many forces are over there, would enhance our ability to secure ourselves and influence ‘world policy.’ (not to mention, support for the war worldwide seems to be waning; so I doubt that countries would view our withdrawing as anymore of a failure than staying around). Could you clarify?
I advocate doing what’s best for the US, because, in the big scheme of things, US success and legitimacy (military, diplomatic, and economic) is far more important than Iraqi success and legitimacy.
From a purely military point of view, a purely logistical point of view, it makes sense to “cut-and-run.”
But that’s only part of the equation.
US military, economic, and diplomatic success is not purely a matter of troop numbers, Gross Domestic Product, trade imbalance amounts, or equipment.
It is every bit as much about perception. US success is as much a product of how the world sees us, as it is about our capabilities.
Our reputation will be ruined if we don’t pull this off.
We will end up being seen as the playground bully who picked a fight and got his butt kicked. It will take a long time before people start taking us seriously again. That will lead to a lot of problems we very much want to avoid.
Geoff: An important economic indicator that’s down since 2002 is oil production.
The majority of Shia and Kurdish Iraqis prefer the new order to the old one, while the Sunnis are just the opposite (PDF, p. 46). Maybe this is a proper righting of past injustices, maybe it’s a recipe for civil war, maybe both. It is, however, a false dichotomy to assume that the only choices available in 2003 were full-scale invasion or continued oppression.
It’s also specious to use Saddam Hussein’s mass murders committed in the 80’s and early 90’s, or refugee exoduses at the same time, as a justification for invasion in 2003. We didn’t invade Iraq in 1988 or 1991, when it might have been relevant (and might have been justified), but in 2003.
About South Korea: You’ll remember that the Korean War began with North Korea invading the South. The ongoing war in Iraq did not, in fact, begin with Iraq invading a neighbor, but with us invading them. The distinction matters.
Seth,
I see where you’re coming from better; it’s not a viewpoint I’d heard put so bluntly I guess.
I still disagree, because I think the world recognizes that we’re not getting beat. We have overthrown the dictator and liberated the Iraquis (to an extent). The fighting there now seems to be various factions fighting amongst themselves. I think the US could ‘cut and run’ and avoid any negative consequences by putting a positive spin on it. All we would have to do is say we’d accomplished what we wanted, paved the way for democracy, and now the Iraquis can go for it (i.e. duke it out via a civil war)! While this may or may not be a true assessment, it could easily be said with a strait face by this administration. So, as long as the ‘spin doctors’ do their job, the US wouldn’t lose credibility.
I think any justification for staying right now should take into account that we owe the Iraqi people something in exchange for what we have done there. Frankly, while it may seem that might makes right and winner makes the rules, government still should operate with a conscience, I think.
“That will lead to a lot of problems we very much want to avoid.”
Like what? No one will want to play with us anymore? Sounds good to me. Its not like anyone is playing with us now.
I am not worried about North Korea or Iran while we are in Iraq. If either of them does anything stupid I think many people in the United States will gladly take up arms to defend themselves. If they don’t, then the U.S. gets what it deserves, whatever that might be.
The problem with Iraq is not the invasion or the continued deployment. Those are minor issues that I feel we are handling just fine. Most of the problems I see are a result of liberal eye-poking and lambasting – making the job of dealing with Iraq very hard. If the Iraq war was not such a political hot button by a small cabal of noisey lawmakers and the concerted efforts of a questionable press, the majority of Americans would be behind this 100 percent. There would be no reason the “insurgence” terrorists would be as successful as they wouldn’t have the media supporting them as a default propaganda.
Of course, the biggest problem of all, is the death of Europe as a viable source of relavance. They are more the enemy of the United States out of self-interest than a moral force for change in the World. Frankly, if they had any actual love of freedom and democracy than there wouldn’t be a need for the WMD reasoning to invade Iraq in the first place. As it is, they are like small dogs that have lost their teeth – barking loudly without a bite to back them up. If they would have banded together with the United States to take on Iraq than North Korea and Iran would have second thoughts about what they are saying openly today. Instead, all that despots have learned is that do something wrong and the powers that be will look at you funny. Do another thing even more wrong, and they will look at you funny again. Do something horrendous and they will pretend to do something to you, but shake hands under the table.
The United States is the only country that has said you do something wrong and we will kick your butt. Why else is it that despotic countries want to talk with the U.S. so bad and can care less about anyone else? Because they know that the United States will do what it says and must be dealt with. Of course, the only reason they want to deal with us is in hopes of minipulation. You control the United States and you control the world. No one else can be taken as a serious threat.
I like the idea of holding an Iraqi referendum on whether we should stay longer. If they say Yes, please stay – then it legitimizes our continued presence until things quiet down a little. If they say No, we do not need you any more – then they take responsibility for any continued disturbances into their own hands. I doubt the vote would be No, however.
Seth, you’ve scared me to death.
I liked this article. It reassures me. I hope it’s true.
Also, Seth, if I can restrain myself from hitting Tiny Grant, you cannot hit my president, George W. Bush. Plus I would have to come bail you out and explain how you’re really a nice guy, just mis-led.
Jettboy,
You control the US, you not only control all its assets, you also control all its liabilities. Smaller nations have a freedom of action that the US simply hasn’t had since the 1800s. We have too many vested interests to be going around giving the international community the finger.
Your world view hasn’t described reality since the 1950s. That’s about the only time the US had anything approaching complete freedom of military and diplomatic action.
Your comment about turning out the American citizenry hasn’t described reality since 1776.
You do realize that we’re running a trillion dollar deficit over the war because Bush basically gave the Germans the finger right? If he’d acted with a bit more tact, we’d have Germany helping pay for this whole Iraq thing. Probably not the French (they’re never happy with anything you do). But Germany was a real key player and we screwed it up.
Not only that, the Japanese government probably would have financed the effort a lot more than they did (their contribution really wasn’t that big. That’s the thing with the Japanese. They’ll never tell you strait-up that you’ve torqued them off. They’ll just quietly withold funds or passive-agressively sabotage what you’re doing.
“No one will play with us anymore”
No big deal?
Are you kidding me? Do you have any idea how much it would cost the US government if all the kids really packed up their toys and went home?
FYI, Isolationism ceased to be a credible position in about the 1940s.
Annegb,
Just to reassure you, I intend to do no such thing. The way things are, I’d probably get thrown in Guantanamo and you’d get a “random IRS audit” if you tried to pay my bail.
Mark,
We don’t need a referendum. The Iraqis overwhelmingly want us to stay. Average on-the-street Iraqis overwhelming vote yes on US troop presence.
So you know, most average Afghans also wanted the Russians to stay in the 1980s.
Like the Iraqis today, the Afghans knew the country was going to hell-in-a-handbasket once the foreign troops pulled out. And the Afghans were right. And the Iraqis today are probably right as well.
They know what side their bread is buttered on.
But I would still have to try. that’s what friends are for. Bailing one out.
Well I appreciate it.
The purpose of such a referendum is not to find out what the Iraqis think. We could use a survey for that. The purpose is to have them take responsibility for what they think as well as to shut up the Iraqi opposition, the terrorist opposition, on the issue.
Great posts Seth, your views closely describe my fears.
Sigh,
OK, just to save jettboy the trouble of saying it,
Here are a few select responses I made to him:
“Your comment about turning out the American citizenry hasn’t described reality since 1776.”
and
“FYI, Isolationism ceased to be a credible position in about the 1940s.”
Looking over both those sentences, they basically amount to name-calling (directed at jettboy’s opinions, not jettboy personally – although the distinction is a pretty fine one). Putting those statements out there without backing them up, essentially amounted to countering jettboy by trying to make him look silly.
So sorry about that.
But I stand by the rest of it.
As far as APJ’s point about not getting beat in Iraq …
This just illustrates how murky this issue has always been.
What are the criteria for victory in Iraq?
The President won’t say.
The Democrats are incapable of explaining it.
The news media have no idea.
And neither do you or I.
But you’ll note in comment #14, I did not say we were getting militarily beat up in Iraq.
On a purely tactical level, I’m sure the US troops are doing a fine job of clearing houses, maintaining security checkpoints, raiding weapons caches, killing insurgents/terrorists, etc.
But then again, the British generals chasing Gen. George Washington all over the entire American eastern seaboard tended to do a pretty good tactical job too. There were years where Washington never won a single open engagement with the British.
But strategically, the British were losing the colonies. Superficial, localized military successes obscured the fact that the British economy was being slowly bled dry while Washington was leading British generals on expensive land campaigns. Washington won by simply wearing out the British capacity to wage war. Britain lost the war. Not militarily. But first economically, then politically, and only finally, militarily.
If you want to really find out how the Iraq war is going, look at our national deficit. The most recent House report puts the deficit for this year at 348 billion.
Politicians on Capitol Hill are actually having serious talks about cutting back spending on Social Security.
That’s how bad things have gotten.
Amir Taheri appears to be the source of the story about Iran forcing minorities to wear an identifying mark, a story that has been retracted from the National Post.
I will be too bad if it turns out he has sacrificed his credibility in a cheap stunt, when he has written so persuasively and intelligently for so many years. Maybe another lesson that exaggerating the very real threat can be counterproductive, serving as an excuse for people to dismiss it.
Bill, you beat me by about 30 minutes, but in my case all I know about Taheri’s writing is the article Geoff linked to, and the now discredited story about Iran. Did he have a “persuasive and intelligent” phase before his “just make stuff up” phase?
I’m mostly acquainted with his journalism through the NY Post, where his column has appeared frequently over the past few years, and from an occasional appearance in WSJ’s OpinionJournal. He has also written for numerous European publications, and before 1979, was the editor of a newspaper in Iran.
Sometimes he seems to have bought in a little blindly to the neoconservative line, and his comments on the Israel-Palestine situation are predictably one-sided.
Then again, despite the fact that “neoconservative” has become somewhat a hiss and a byword, not all the writing under that rubric is necessarily unpersuasive or unintelligent. And I’m still convinced that some of their goals could have been achieved with a little more finesse and minimal competence in planning and execution.
Bill, you’re probably right.
I guess Francis Fukuyama’s recent defection illustrates that there’s room for nuance in the dialogue. Perhaps you could point out some of the other good neoconservative reading.
I’ve always been a political realist myself.
An approach seemingly completely ignored by this administration.
For those following this tangent:
Taheri’s statement
WW,
Taking your analogy a little farther, perhaps the next time I am asked to sub in our ward’s nursery, I can take my cues from your idea of foreign policy.
The only time I will intervene is when one of the kids directly attacks me (or threaten to stain my dress slacks). At all other times, non-intervention is certainly the best policy, regardless of whether little Susie is poking out little Jimmy’s eyes.
Any interference can only come to grief, after all …
Seth…
I think you MAY be taking the analogy a BIT too far (WW was at least comparing one war with another). hahaha. But, if we’re using primary as the analogy, an obvious difference is that at least you were ASKED to sub.
If we’re using primary intervention as an analogy, a more apt one would be: the primary teacher is there but things aren’t going well in the class (the teacher is too strict, kids are misbehaving). You, without being asked by the bishop, the teacher, or the kids, burst into the classroom, throw the ‘overly strict’ teacher out, accidently knock a primary kid on his rump and try to get a more orderly class going; but the kids still misbehave. (In the analogy, I think the bishop and parents were aware of the situation, had talked to the teacher with little/no results and were discussing appropriate measures to take at the time you burst in).
BTW, if you are asked to sub, please don’t spread your war-mongering, might-makes-right propaganda with our youth (haha, just kidding, I’m sure you’re nice and that we just disagree politically)
Seth R. – “If I ever meet Pres. Bush, I’ll have to restrain myself from smacking him.”
Ah, don’t worry about it, go ahead and try. If it’s meant to be, God will make sure the Secret Service is asleep at the switch at that moment.
Seth R.,
I salute your restraint…although, I would say that a healthy wrestling match may not be TOO bad (provided of course you even the playing field by separating genders and establishin weight classes), and could help work out some extra aggression…just don’t give the kids any WMD’s
I’m more worried about them using the chalk and erasers.
I’ve always found the threat of WMDs to be highly overrated.
Sorry to check in later here. First item of business: Who would believe anything Teheri writes anyway? He is the one who wrote the recent story about the dress codes for Irans different religious sects, which turned out to be total B.S. and a big fat lie on top of that. The guy is apparently part of the big propoganda machine, trained in the Sha’s Iran, and definitely not to be trusted on what is going on the ground in Iraq. I’d definitely like for you to check out Dahr Jamail, or Patrick Cockburn, two journalists not embedded with our troops, risking their lives there in Iraq to bring us the real story on the ground. It’s not pretty my friends.
Yes, things are going pretty well in Iraq when the Prime Minister makes a statement like this found in the NY Times:
Here’s a little required reading on Iraq; a poll from the British Ministry of Defense that reports 82% of Iraqis are strongly opposed to coalition troops presence, 45% support attacks against US troops, 67% feel less secure because of the occupation, and less than 1% feel coalition troops are responsible for any improvement in security. I guess Taheri is really not in touch with reality the way Iraqis see it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/10/23/wirq23.xml
We only want to be in Iraq as long as the Iraqis want us to be – if their elected representatives ask us to leave, will we vacate the premises in no time. Or in other words, we are currently acting as an extension of Iraqi civil authority.
Mark #52,
Well, we’ll find out how true your statement is soon. The Iraqi leaders are pretty upset with us now and have said recently that they want us out by the end of the year and think that their forces will be ready by then. Our leaders are saying we will not be out by the end of the year, regardless of what Iraqi leaders are saying. The Iraqi government is sovereign as long as the US allows it to be. As for the Iraqi public… Well, a poll by the British Ministry of Defense last year showed less than 1% of Iraqis thought that the US was responsible for any improvement in the security situation. 45% supported attacks on American troops. 82% were strongly opposed to the presence of American troops. In spite of this, we have KBR over there making permanent US bases. Time will tell whether your statement is true, but the preliminary returns are not looking so good.
At least we can see from this latest revelation at:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Koreas-US-No-Gun-Ri.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
that the killings at Haditha are not isolated events. They not only occur often during this war, but, now we see that these sorts of things have always occurred… with the latest revelation being the indiscriminate killing of Korean War refugees by US troops. I think you can say that these sorts of atrocities come with being a superpower and being in the clutches of the horrors of war. Whether this excuses the killers I don’t know. But, it should cause us all to think much harder before entering another war such as in Iran, or to think more about pulling our troops out of Iraq.
One question: How many of the people posting on this thread have either served in Iraq or have close family members who have been or are currently there?
I ask because I want to know how many of you that are active supporters of this (now labeled) “humanitarian intervention” in Iraq do so from a position where you have nothing personal at stake. (Please don’t respond that you do have something “personal” at stake just by virtue of being an American citizen; the negligable change in the threat to your personal physical security engendered by the Iraq invasion – which may be positive or negative depending on who you beleive – or the economic effect on your life simply do not count). How many of you actually put your own life on the line there? How many of you live each day praying to get to the end without receieving a phone call about the death or disfigurement of a loved one? I ask because, in my limited experience, the vast majority of those vociferously supporting the invasion have not and do not (which is not a targeted criticism but simply an acknowledgment that most Americans are not so directly affected by the war).
Three years ago I was conflicted about the invasion. I did not believe the Administration’s rhetoric about WMD’s, and the attempts to link Iraq to 9/11 (or terrorism in general) were insultingingly transparent. I believed then (as now) that the invasion would violate international law, however, I believed that Iraqi liberation could only be a good thing. I had always been a supporter of true humanitarian interventions.
Now I find myself less willing to advocate that other people’s loved ones should be sent to fight and die in other nations’ civil wars or to liberate people from political oppression.
My youngest brother’s guard unit was deployed and he spent a year flying a helicopter in Iraq. Some of the hardest days of my life occurred when the news would report a helicopter down without sufficient detail to rule out my brother’s involvement. The cycle would then bring joy at learning he was safe, followed by shame at that joy – shame because somebody somewhere, feeling just like me, had lost a brother. He had some close calls and some life altering experiences, but he came home five months ago physically whole.
Six weeks after he returned, my other brother, who separated from the Army almost three years ago, was called back into service. With very little notice he was required to leave his pregnant wife and two year old daughter and is now in Iraq in a position that requires him to spend most of his time outside the wire, subject continually to attacks, the viciousness of which are often as underreported as the good things the troops are accomplishing.
Let me suggest that the answer to the original question of this post is highly dependent upon one’s point of view and directly related both to what one risks and what is personally at stake. Armed conflict is not a board game or a high school debate round where the losers pack it up and go on about their day. By its very nature, it is always deadly for someone. My brother’s life is too high a price for protecting what is at stake in Iraq. I am unwilling for him to pay it, and I despair that others, with nothing personal to lose, are so willing for him (and others) to pay it.
Very nice, thoughtful post Kleemaker.
Surely there are situations where military intervention may be appropriate. Burma may have been one of those. East Timor may have been another.
The problem with the question though, is that we must assume that the entity doing the intervening has no other objective in mind. In Iraq, for example. There was no pretext of going to war for humanitarian reasons. We didn’t care too much about humanity there as was evidenced by our harsh sanctions on Iraq thru the 90’s that killed perhaps a million people including the most vulnerable, little children, of whom UNICEF reported 500,000 had been killed as a direct result of the sanctions by 1996. I believe that Von Sponek and Dennis Halliday were UN Humanitarian leaders in Iraq, who quit their jobs in protest over the humanitarian conditions created by the sanctions. Apparently, we weren’t too concerned with humanitarian issues in Iraq. This lack of concern for humanitarian issues is made clearer with situations like the shooting of ambulances, the destruction of hospitals and the ransacking of hospitals that aren’t destroyed, all violations of Geneva Conventions.
There is much more to be done in the world to take care of humans other than war. 11 million children die each year of diseases that are easily curable for the most part, or malnutrition. Using our tax dollars to pay for life saving measures in poor regions of the world would be a better use of humanitarianism than the use of our tax dollars to buy outrageously expensive military equipment so that we can destroy people in order to save them.
Nope, I don’t claim to be anti-war.
I’m ambivalent about war. There’s a difference.
For me, foreign policy, domestic politics, military force, economics, etc. are good for two things:
1) Promoting the spread of the true Gospel, as handed down to Joseph Smith, throughout the nations, and
2) Securing peace, happiness, and prosperity for as many people as possible.
This is why I’m not just concerned with whether Iraqis are suffering. I’m looking at a bigger picture.
I believe that millions more will suffer and die if America loses control of the international system.
So it’s not that I don’t care about the dead Iraqi child (I’ve seen the picture and I think my own daughter is that age, actually). It’s that I care about a lot of other children who may suffer in her place, should the current world-stability, enforced with US aircraft carriers ever be jeopardized. I already recited my laundry list of hot-spots in the world that could potentially go to hell-in-a-handbasket if the people there weren’t able to count on America keeping the peace. I’m not going to recite it again (you can read it waaay up there in the comments).
I opposed involvement in Iraq primarily because it threatened our ability to keep the peace EVERYWHERE ELSE. I also was worried that we might screw up the invasion and not make things better for the Iraqis as well … which it appears, we did.
But now we are stuck in Iraq. I’m worried that when the US troops pull out, the Shiites, Sunnis, and maybe even the Kurds will start slaughtering each other wholesale. Lots more little girls dying than there are now. This will probably go on until another dictatorship manages to kill all its opponents and restore civic order with an iron boot. Then the Iraqis are back to square one with only a lot of dead people to show for it.
It’s like junior poking a hole in his parents’ water bed. He definitely shouldn’t have made that hole, but if he takes his finger out now, before mom can go get some duct tape, it’s going to be a big mess.
What is even worse than the suffering of the Iraqis, is that many other nations may lose faith in the US government’s ability to police the world.
Are you aware that one of the big factors that keeps Pakistan and India from launching nuclear weapons at each other is their common belief in US military, economic, and political strength and influence. Each is relying on us to keep the other from getting any crazy ideas. What if they don’t believe in us anymore.
Can you even imagine what would happen if India and Pakistan started shooting at each other for real? Not just some border skirmishes in Kashmir, but the real-deal. What if China, who has always been hostile towards India decides to support Pakistan (since the US doesn’t seem capable)? Would Russia sit by quietly? Would Vietnam see China’s preoccupation as a good chance to take some terrritory back by force? Would Japan feel comfortable having only a “Self-Defense Force” with China (its historic enemy) on the rampage? How would the Chinese view Japanese rearmament?
Dear Lord, we could be looking at World War III if the US ever truly lost all its credibility on the world stage. This isn’t about sheltering President Bush’s personal ego (I doubt very many people are less concerned with Bush’s ego than I am). Nor is it about American pride (which I’ve always disagreed with). It’s about safeguarding the lives of the world’s people.
No, I am not a pacifist. I can be roused, when I see that the benefits outweigh the problems. I’m not anti-war.
That isn’t changed by the fact that I think that our little Iraq adventure has been a complete mess.
That’s all I really have to say about this.
I’ll let you have the last word if you want it.
This unembedded reporter (Patrick Cockburn) in Iraq is reporting a refugee problem with people fleeing the violence. This is something largely unreported in the US media. For the full article see:
http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick06062006.html
Seth,
I think that we are more disturbers of the peace than keepers of the peace. Our military purposes are to keep the world safe for economic pillaging by the big corporations, not for girls your daughter’s age. It is hard for me to imagine a good war, but I might be able to if we truly cared about people. Governments are not there to care about people and are by definition self-interested. Therefore, we allign ourselves with nasty dictators like those in Uzbekistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and many in Africa. We look the other way when Suharto is killing his millions, or when atrocities are happening in our own back yard (with Haiti’s current interim government).
WW, Seth had the good sense not to toss around the word “cowardly” to distinguish his own keyboarding accomplishments from others’. You might take that example to heart. He’s said as much as he has to say, or has time to say right now. He’s generously offered you the last word, and I hope you’ve now spoken it.
Johnathan Raunch has a well thought-out article here. It represents my views pretty well.
Except I wish my own views were that well-reasoned, but anyway …