that wasn't blitheringly insane?
Nope. It reminds me of a comment at Digby's not long after the 2004 election: "I feel like the woman whose husband refused to listen when she told him not to sell the family cow for magic beans. She's still forced to consider his welfare, but it's neurochemically impossible to be more angry. And she can see that, irresponsible as he was to do it, as soon as it dawns on him that he's been rooked, he won't repent or apologize--he'll blame her."
They've been warming up this argument since before the first bomb dropped.
Hasn't this argument already been made by Glenn Reynolds, Power Line, and a host of others?
Well, but not that I've seen coherently. I'm wondering if anyone's seen something along these lines that could be characterized as an argument rather than an insult.
Coherently is asking entirely too much of Powerline.
Molly of NYC ignores that the magic beans turned out to be a good investment, netting the man the goose that layed golden eggs -- surely worth more than a sickly old cow.
Lucky guy. All we got was the golden insurgency that laid IEDs.
I don't think this is ever spelled out as a coherent argument, LB, because by nature it's incoherent. "Stabbed In The Back" is the necessary companion to the "If We Only Had The Will" argument; both of these become immediately absurd if you try to explain them, but are utterly convincing to their adherents so long as they remain unexplored slogans ("We must win... and we WILL win if we have the WILL to DO so... but those naysayers are SAPPING our will to fight!... but WE MUST WIN...!" etc.) These were never designed to be coherent theories, only slogans to be used in the place of theories, which pretty much describes the modern American right in general.
Yes, dolchstosslegende is almost exactly the same argument as "we did not have the necessary will" -- it is the assignment of blame necessary once we have uncovered the underlying reason for our defeat.
I don't understand how the will argument can be so popular. I can see how things like the supply side tax arguments have intuitive (or counter-intuitive, perhaps) appeal. But to believe the will argument requires believing one of two things, neither of which I think many people believe, and the overlapping subset can't be too large either.
Item of belief one is that the person believes they have gotten everything in life that they really wanted and were willing to do anything to get, because they'd have no think things are different on the level of international collective action.
Item of belief two is that for whatever goal they are saying will is all-important to achieve, absolutely any means are permissible.
I expect Emerson to now tell me that a great many people believe both items.
Perhaps we need to start propagating our own counter-myth. What's German for "brick wall in the face"?
What's German for "brick wall in the face"?
Don't these guys have a song about that?
The other nice (or not so nice, if you will) thing about the "will" argument is that its irrefutable. If we'd just tried harder we would have won, the loser-defeatists kept us from trying harder, therefore the loser-defeatists kept us from winning. No amount of contrary evidence will convince someone that this is wrong.
"no think" s/b "no reason to think"
9: I don't understand how the will argument can be so popular
Simple: the attraction of magical thinking. There's always an audience for someone who offers to cut through the tedious mess of real life by saying "you can ignore all of that if you just believe enough." And if it doesn't work out, obviously the unbelievers must have queered the pitch with their nasty skepticism and negative energy. Very common trope in religion, paranormal belief, economics and political ideology alike.
Those RBWs and RWDs who try and rely on some form of analytical conclusion will express it as follows:
Leaving Iraq = losing
Criticism = basis for leaving
therefore
criticism = cause of loss.
See, e.g., Omnibus Bill's comment here.
Alternatively, the troops don't like to hear the truth. Lastly, terrorists don't realize that we are trying to find them and kill them until they read it in the NYT. Id.
Whether or not you view this as blitheringly insane depends on your choice of beverage.
if we'd just tried harder we would have won
Like Jonathan Livingston Horowitz.
Luckily, we may not have to shoulder all the blame, since some senior members of the Benedict Backstab Brigade are also blaming the Iraqis for being too crazy.
Apo, your link in 17 has me at a loss for words.
There is a sane maxim floating around in all of this:
High morale is requisite in some successful war efforts, chiefly those fighting against long odds.
And, indeed, it is child's play to think of many situations commonly cited as examples of times when high morale gave people the hope to carry on against impossible odds. London in WWII. The U.S., 1775. Afghanistan, late 1980s.
But. But but but but but. (Butter, butter, butter.) Here are some statements that are not at all equivalent.
"Dissent necessarily undermines morale."
"Public opinion and morale are necessarily the same thing."
"Morale counts for more in winning a war than overwhelming military force or superior technology."
So, either the right wing wannabepundits are making a careless error, or their reasoning is as follows.
Winning the war in Iraq is equivalent to winning the war of American public opinion.
Dissent, honest news coverage, and scandalous pictures undermine the administration's ability to win the war of public opinion.
Therefore, the NYT lost the war.
(Pay no attention to the tanks behind the curtain.)
I don't see how its hard to believe. its the same thing ever football coach tells you before each game. Its an easy way to explain most failures in life.
If you're trying to maximize your results for an individual football game, it would even be reasonable to play as if you believed it. It would not, of course, be likely to maximize your results for the season (of a team) or lifetime (of a player) to play that way.
But the football coach is talking to the team, not to the stoners smoking behind the gym (that'd be us, the anti-war movement). Wouldn't anyone call a coach blaming the stoners for a loss because they didn't come to the pep rally a lunatic?
Only if the stoners staged a counter-rally in which they convinced the administration not to buy new helmets. (Except that in this analogy, I think the administration didn't buy new helmets/armor and then blamed it on the media when the troops were shot.)
And 21 gets it right. "Play like a champion today" is a great slogan, but you don't get there just by chanting the slogans. You have to have the goods to back it up.
But the football coach is talking to the team
Part of militaristic authoritarianism is that everybody is supposed to be on the team -- so it's legitimate to blame the stoners for not getting out on the field or at least cheerleading.
The more appropriate objection is that no amount of cheering will allow a military force to accomplish an impossible task. The problem isn't that Americans aren't cheering loudly enough, it's that Iraqis aren't cheering at all.
How much of a contrarian am I? Well, here goes. First, I'll note that IMO the invasion of Iraq was a misadventure somewhere past foolish and well on the way to criminal.
But. It is plausible that sending in a massive additional force within a year or so of taking Baghdad could have put a damper on the internecine Sunni-vs.-Shia conflict, providing enough basic security to starve the insurgency of street-level support; could have helped keep NGO's in country, allowing for more successful reconstruction (and some hope of internationalizing the effort); could have controlled the border--though I've never believed the "foreigners are behind it all" rhetoric (it's what a puppet government has to say regardless of the facts).
As near as I can recall, additional forces were advocated by hard-headed mainstream internationalists in both parties (I'm thinking especially of Gen. Clark). Whatever Democrats tried to say about increasing the number of non-US troops, I don't think anyone could seriously have expected some white knight to ride in and save our asses. Not after Bush's kindergarten-bully performance.
If the Administration had been willing (or able) to comprehend the scope of its own failure, and had responded by sending in a clean-up crew of several thousand, then... monkeys would have flown out of all our asses! But it's also plausible that America wouldn't be sitting on its hands through the overture to a Mideast Götterdämmerung right now, and that hundreds of Americans and thousands of Iraqis would be a lot less dead right now.
What's the single most compelling reason why more troops weren't sent? It could be argued that I don't have a clue. But I'm sure the Conventional Wisdom is with me in assuming the Administration knew by fall of 2003 that committing more troops would mean certain defeat for the Party. And the opposition never unified the "clean it up and get the hell out" crowd with the "just get the hell out" crowd.
As a "we didn't have the will" case, this doesn't actually succeed in blaming the American Voter (antiwar or otherwise) for the clusterfuck in Iraq. Were we supposed to guarantee our votes to anybody who promised to send more of Our Troops into a war zone? But it goes a long way (again IMO) toward explaining the meekness of the media during the 2004 election. Ever more concerned with politics than anything else, the media took it as given that no leader could advocate increasing the occupation force. So they let both sides natter on about Doing Something to Fix It without requiring anything specific or credible.
Even if I bought all of my own argument, it wouldn't make the neowingnuts right. If I throw a brick through a window, and my friends don't show up to clean up the glass, and then somebody gets cut or there's a flood or whatever, then...wait! Who broke the fucking window?!
Only if the stoners staged a counter-rally in which they convinced the administration not to buy new helmets.
This is exactly the argument that I'm wondering if anyone is making. Is there anyone out there who is saying that "Due to anti-war pressure, the administration took action Y when they should have taken action X, and that's why things are going badly," for any specific Y and X? Or is it all in the psychic realm, that lack of support is depriving our soldiers of the emotional strength to win?
What's the single most compelling reason why more troops weren't sent?
Their non-existence, mostly.
their non-existence, mostly
Here is where we get right back into the argument about insufficient will -- if our country had had the necessary balls, we could have willed those soldiers into existence.
if our country had had the necessary balls
Or if we'd quit overlooking the advantages of mitotic division.
Also note the contradiction with the right wing view that things are going "great" in Iraq with their "the media are losing this war" meme.
Well, yeah. For anyone who thinks the war is still going as well as can be expected, they don't have much of an argument that lack of will is making us lose.
It just feeds into the persevering mindset. Churchill had Hitler but prevailed, the twinset-and-pearls set has the New York Times.
29: This ties back into one of the key points of the Harper's article. At no point did Bush ask for any meaningful contribution or sacrifice from the American people. Had he at any point said that we need more troops to get the job done and appealed to young, able-bodied people to please go join the army, and had anti-war sentiment sapped the recruiting drive, then the right wing cheering section might be able to blame the anti-war folks in somewhat coherent fashion. But Bush never made any such appeal; to the contrary, his message has always been that the commanders in the field have all the troops they've ever asked for.
#3, #9: The angry irrationality of these positions is fundamental to them. Some people holding these positions are quite bright, but they've put their fundamental political thinking into a transcendant space which critical thinking is not allowed to enter. But most people holding these beliefs are completely throughtless.
W/D, you weren't saying that no one can believe these things because they make no sense, were you? If you were, I fart in your general direction.
Another argument I've seen is that if insurgents know that there is an anti-war movement, and that each insurgent victory will drive more people to that movement, then the insurgents will be more motivated and less likely to give up- if they can driive enough anti-war sentiment, eventually there will be a withdrawl. Therefore, anti-war dissent must be suppresed, because if the insurgents hear about it, they will fight harder. (Hence dissent gives comfort to the enemy, hence dissent = treason.)
This argument presupposes that insurgents read Daily Kos when they're not busy building IEDs. Actually, I think I've seen that argument going around too.
I have no doubt that if we were to institute a draft, send a bigger force to Iraq, and keep it there for 10-15 years, in the long run we would win. There would probably also have to be a crackdown on dissent and an economic restructuring.
Probably many of the warbloggers and neocons want exactly this, but only a few of the fringe guys have come out and said so, because this idea won't fly if straightforwardly presented.
Well, the second one because it makes no sense for any puported goal of the war.
The first because it's a belief about their own experience. Unless they recognize that there have been things which they had a really strong will to achieve and still failed to overcome all obstacles, but think that at some critical mass, people willing things is sufficient.
I have no doubt that if we were to institute a draft, send a bigger force to Iraq, and keep it there for 10-15 years, in the long run we would win.
What does 'win' mean? Be able to leave a stable liberal democracy behind? Because even for 10-15 years, that seems unlikely.
Hard-core authoritarian movements need both an external and an internal enemy. Often the internal enemy is the more important target. The goal becomes the transformation of the homeland, and the external enemy is actual a means to that. (Think Mussolini in Ethiopia -- there was little reason to care much about Ethiopia.)
The internal enemy in the US is us. That's what Malkin, LGF, the Rottweiler, Goldberg, the NRO, Powerline, and Instacracker are really talking about.
I have no doubt
I have lots of doubt about that.
34: Exactly. Which is yet more evidence for Rah's observation that the political success of the Republican Party is more important to this administration than military or foreign policy success.
And, man, how telling is it that Bush didn't make a big, "Come serve your country in the War on Terror!" speech? Gah.
37: I actually have serious doubts about that, John. Maybe if we imposed a Saddam-like autocracy, complete with military slaughter on a massive scale, we could "win" in the sense of controlling the country, but it's certainly not a given that more troops and more time is all it would take to impose order on a fractious, multi-ethnic developing nation.
Re my 38: Maybe that's not such a good argument; I recognize the possibility of people believing false things about their own experience, including how happy they were (or how much pain they were in) at previous points in their life.
Well, it would require an escalation, a scorched earth policy, many more casualties every year for a decade or more, the complete revamping of American law and the American economy, and the harsh imposition of political uniformity on the US. I don't think that problem is military -- it's that Bush promised a quick cheap victory.
People talk about how "Democracies do not fight aggressive wars". But these same people are furious that anyone should oppose Bush's plans. To the extent that democracies resist militarization and long-term imperialist projects, it's a good thing.
Just noticed that Henley made the connection between the "Stab in the Back" article and the "Green Lantern Theory" post , on Saturday.
Y'all appear clueless on how bad a loss in Iraq and withdrawal will be. I remind again, Iraq is not Vietnam, which was a fairly sleepy siesta little country, invaded much more often than invading. This is Mesopotamia, Assyrian-ville. Needs imagination here, preferably a deranged paranoid imagination. I volunteer.
5 years down the line, after the troops are home, and gasoline is at $5 and the country is in recession, a troop of virgin born agains get grabbed in Baghdad by Sadr's minions, raped, electric-drilled, crucified on TV and whatever gov't controls whatever portion of Iraq is governed says "Boys will be boys". Anyone old enough to remember the Iranian hostages? The birth of Nightline, the fall of a decent and sane President to be replaced by Elliot Abrams, Weinberger, and Poindexter.
We won't go back to Iraq. The anger will be turned on Americans and everyone will get mean and selfish and Norquist's wet dreams become gov't policy. We will go kill some brown people somewhere who can't fight back. Music will turn to shit.
This isn't pessimism or prediction but fact. I think the above is exactly what is gonna happen. A war in Iraq killing thousands a month is the best we are gonna get. Really. It can only get worse. You will see.
it would require an escalation [...]
Didn't work so well for the Soviets in Afghanistan, though.
46: Damn. I read that post and forgot it.
You know what really pisses me off? Yah, sweet MY and Ezra want UHC and no war. What they will get is no war, no Medicare, no Medicaid. Thousands will still be dying every day, and they won't be soldiers, they will be little kids and grannies.
I don't know if that is some kind of moral responsibility win for liberals. It ain't for me.
5 years down the line, after the troops are home
You're being optimistic.
Yah, sweet MY and Ezra want UHC and no war. What they will get is no war, no Medicare, no Medicaid.
I just can't buy your theory that we can restore left-wing dominance in domestic policy by out-bloodthirstying the conservatives.
Sorry if this is overly harsh, but unless you meant to write, "What they will get is war, no Medicare, [and] no Medicaid" (which I think is more in line with things I've seen you say previously), then 50 comes down to, "I expect that roughly equal numbers of innocent people will die from two sets of political/policy options and say that as few as possible, hopefully zero, will be Americans, and that the rest will be killed by terribly immoral American acts."
Bob, I must have read dozens upon dozens of your posts by now, and I honestly have no idea what your politics are actually like.
54: bob's politics don't seem so different from any other Democrat's. He just thinks there is a sizeable lunatic fringe that we have to accomodate to get anything done. Through the sixties, we gave them Jim Crow. We took that off the table, so now we have to give them war. My fear is that some day soon we will stop referring to him as "mcmanus" and start referring to him as "the prophet bob."
We took that off the table, so now we have to give them war.
I dunno. A majority of the American public is now utterly sick of war. What it's going to take is a Democrat who will stand up and say, in the face of the predictable criticism, "Fuck you, right wing. This war was a bad idea from the get go and it's time to let it go." In other words, not Hillary "I can wrestle a buffalo" Clinton.
55: Well, it's just that whenever I think I've got him pegged as More Idealistic Than Thou he actually turns into Far More Cynical Than Thou. Both and neither and everything in between seem to lead to the McManus Apocalypse, which I'm pretty sure was supposed to start by now anyway, the first trump being the Rider on the Pale Diebold and the second trump being the Angel with the Key to the Bottomless Norquist.
In general I'm worried about most of the stuff Bob is worried about, it's just that to be frank, I think Bob gives Republicans way, way too much credit for what's going on. He subscribes to the Evil Genius school of thought, which maintains that everything that's going on - including George Bush's thirty-something approval ratings - are part of the Grand GOP Master Plan, which strikes me as a vast misreading of a bunch of political tools who for the most part have been using the same bag of tricks for thrity years and have the good fortune of using them on Democrats too spineless to know how to deal with them.
I raise you a "dunno," Apo. I think that we're looking at two very different views of the world, and even if we can find a majority to back off of this war, we won't find a stable majority to reorient our present "Hulk SMASH!" foreign policy. People find it compelling, and it fits in with the larger "triumph of the will" worldview. We're just so much stronger than anyone else that we can do thinks like the Iraq war without immediate national consequences. We don't have any real reason to rethink the overall strategy.
We don't have any real reason to rethink the overall strategy or, you don't think the median American voter has suffered serious enough consequences from that strategy to happily and regularly vote for those in opposition to it?
you don't think the median American voter has suffered serious enough consequences from that strategy to happily and regularly vote for those in opposition to it?
Not really. No draft, no tax hikes. Why care? Maybe we pull out of this one, because it kind of seems like a downer, but a general reorientation--you don't stop watching West Wing after just a few bad episodes.
The last two presidential elections have been, for all intents and purposes, ties. I suspect events have probably swayed enough of the Schwarzkopf SMASH! crowd. Given the divide, it doesn't take that many.
I have a certain amount of sympathy to bob's apocalyptic take. Nobody has ever gone broke betting on the gullibility of the American public. But Barnum's maxim still holds true.
Oh, I think that's more likely than not, what I was asking was if it's what you meant to say, since it's rather different from what you did. I'd appreciate it if my West Wing addiction were left out of this.
I suspect events have probably swayed enough of the Schwarzkopf SMASH! crowd. Given the divide, it doesn't take that many.
Maybe that's right. But I think the SMASH! foreign policy is an outgrowth of a much, much deeper and more elaborate worldview. If you're a "law & order" type, or a "up by your bootstraps" type, our present foreign policy makes sense. It may not be working, but it makes sense. The stuff others might propose, like ignoring or even negotiating with really bad people, just doesn't. And I think that when the choice is "bad policy" versus "incoherent policy," people will choose "bad policy."
56:SCMT comes very close, and only misses the Kurtzian tagline.
Bob is a very pessimistic hawk who tends to be a libertarian, but not at all a Social Darwinist market-worshipper. All of his views are strong ones. There's nothing really inconsistent about his mix of views, but his political demographic is probably even tinier than mine.
Subject to correction by present company.
66:I think I live in Rome. I turn on the talk radio, see the courseness and lack of culture, the violence and paranoia, and I know I live in Rome.
Concrete instead of marble. Sex comedies instead of religious tragedies. Now the good thing is to be a peace loving Christian, withdraw to the provinces or get fed to lions. But that ain't gonna stop the blood flowing, and don't pretend the blood is gonna stop. Egypt sends the grain because of the legions.
Interesting question is to what stage Rome. Empires eventually go bankrupt and contract. Maybe we are in late stage Rome? This would not be optimism.
But I think we are in mid Republican Rome, having just wiped out Hannibal, and mounted the stallion that just can't stop. The Civil Wars and Empire are yet to come. We will nuke em all, and they know it. Putin or his successor will bend his knee and pay tribute.
And this is not a source of pride.
You know what is cool? In French, 'Putin' is transliterated as 'Poutine', and that's a dish made of french fries, gravy, and cheese.
The closest thing that I can imagine to a coherent stabbed-in-the-back theory for the Iraq war would go something like this:
Whatever the root causes of terrorism, what drives terrorists to attack us and our allies is their perception of our weakness. September 11 happened because we pulled out of Lebanon under Reagan, refused to march into Baghdad during the first Gulf War, and repeatedly failed to respond to terrorist attacks during the Clinton administration. If we could grow democracy in Iraq, that’d be great. But that is not why we're there. Fundamentally, we win the war on terrorism - or, at least, don’t lose it - by showing that we’re not afraid to fight. As long as we stay in Iraq, we’re holding our ground. If we lose the will to stay there, we'll have lost not only the Iraq War, but the larger war too.
Now, I think that that’s nonsense. But people (i.e., Cheney, Guiliani) do believe it, or something like it. The “Iraq is the central front in the global pissing match that is the war on terror” seems like the only theory of the Iraq War that could lend itself to that kind of after-the-fact analysis.
This isn't pessimism or prediction but fact.
Not to get all pedantic or anything, but you have often enough said something like this that I just want to say: no, that's not fact at all, it's a prediction. Seems pessimistic too. Doesn't mean it won't happen, but you're just guessing, and claiming it as fact makes you sound ridiculous in an "I just successfully cast a 12th level prophecy spell, and here's what I learned" way.
You know what really pisses me off? Yah, sweet MY and Ezra want UHC and no war. What they will get is no war, no Medicare, no Medicaid. Thousands will still be dying every day, and they won't be soldiers, they will be little kids and grannies.
Could you explain what you mean here? I don't get it.
This discussion reminds me of this classic post by Adam Kotsko.
70: Yeah, I don't get it either. Bob, it sounds like you're suggesting that MY, Ezra, and all the other smart young things should take up arms in the cause of universal health care?
Bob means that liberal domestic policy goals are never going to be accomplished as long as conservatives can focus their energies on blocking them. His solution is to invade and conquer the Middle East, which will keep the conservatives occupied (and kill off many of them), leaving the domestic sphere open for liberals.
I don't agree with him, but that's what he's saying.
73: That's what I understand bob to be saying as well. While I share his ultimate goals (a liberal domestic policy), I think the solution identified is, to put it mildly, unworkable, and if it weren't unworkable I'd still object to it as immoral.
74: I see mcmanus deploying the Phil Ochs mp3s shortly.
37: (I have no doubt that if we were to institute a draft, send a bigger force to Iraq, and keep it there for 10-15 years, in the long run we would win .... )
I think US policy should require a draft to staff preemptive wars. Then maybe Congress would fulfill its oversight obligation rather than rubber-stamping a war.
I'm still reeling from the year my son just completed in Iraq. Without a protest movement like the one created by the draft during Vietnam, there's no end in sight to this war because relatively few people are affected by it. That’s why one can calmly write about a 10-15 year “in the long run victiory.”
Evangelism in the military - not so surprising when the commander-in-chief reports that God told him to invade Iraq.
I think US policy should require a draft to staff preemptive wars. Then maybe Congress would fulfill its oversight obligation rather than rubber-stamping a war.
I endorse this wholeheartedly. Actually, all I really want is for the every Presidential candidate to promise to include the words "if necessary, I'll institute a draft" in any speech ginning up a major war. I think that would be enough.
67: The Empire is to come? Bullshit, Bob. We're on our way down, not up.
73, 74: If the idea is to distract American conservatives, instead of a having a massive war, can't we just, like, jangle our car keys or something?
Wouldn't we all just have to have tons of hot gay sex to distract them?
OK:All this is just my instinct, from history and experience, you can argue with it or dismiss it.
1) War is what America does, and we do it well. Maybe the best in history. It is our comparative advantage, the brutality and idealism, or self-delusion. American exceptionalism, we think we are the good guys in ways Rome and Britain did not. We are not going to stop fighting. Ever.
2) I don't want to write an essay here. Thucydides influences me a lot, conservative hegemony vs liberal imperialism. Imperialism liberalizes, at least for America.
3) On our way down? We are sustaining and even increasing military spending while the rest of the world disarms. What do you think that means? If we had tried something like Iraq when Nasser was around we might have lost, or lost tens of thousands. We have no military competition, yet still we build, research, train.
Maybe the US is batshit crazy. Or maybe we are at the start of true empire. I think nukes are much less important than most people think. They really didn't save Russia. Pakistan, NK, Iran will do our will, a least somewhat, or be irrelevant. The military power provides economic power. Japan, China, East Asia are paying tribute by buying bonds.
I hope not hegemony, cause this country could look like Sparta. Serfs, middling paid craftsmen, and a feudal oligarchy. Something like 1890. Duh.
re: 81
"1) War is what America does, and we do it well. Maybe the best in history. "
You're kidding right? This seems so crazily deluded it almost doesn't deserve a response.
On what possible standard might the US be the best in history? Other than the 'best at believing themselves to be really special' standard.
I know I always harp on about US exceptionalism -- cos its bloody irritating -- but this claim is just silly.
And, as another English-type person here, with one set of grandparents in the Indian Civil Service, I know that we thought we were the good guys. What's more, the American form of exceptionalism is clearly descended from the British protestant form. See Clifford Longley's excellent book "Chosen People" for a rather theological tak eon this; but look also at the way in which someone like Paul Johnson could move without effort from the British left to the American right while maintaining all the time a belief that his tribe should be running the world.
It's very interesting that Bob should consider for even a moment that America is a wonderful nation at fighting. I mean, this isn't an idea that is remotely credible outside the USA, as Matt McG says. It is nearly as removed from reality as the American belief that the French are bad at wars.
"It is nearly as removed from reality as the American belief that the French are bad at wars."
As a fairly complete digression, I happened to get around to catching the quite bland and mediocre Richard Donner Timeline this evening, and was faintly struck by the fact that when the American heros are sent back in time to the 14th Century, and wind up intervening in a battle between the English and French, such as they were, in France, it's the English who are the Bad Guys, and the French who are the Good Guys, which seems just unusual enough in American films these days to be worth remarking on in passing.
I don't have a larger point here; you just gave me barely enough of a hook to hang the observation on.
"On what possible standard might the US be the best in history?"
Uh. 5 per cent of the worlds population consuming 30-40 per cent of the world resources? Or do you think we are nicer or smarter than everybody else?
Nazis, Japanese, Soviets lost. They sucked at war.
Ya think Rommel was really slick? He lost.
Alexander was pretty good. Caesar was ok. Napoleon and Gustavus Adolphus got nothing, accomplished nothing.
I suppose you admire R E Lee. He lost. Politics and diplomacy is war by other means. War is total, and about power, influence, intimidation, booty, tribute.
Nobody even dreams of fighting us, competing. You are good at war when you don't need to fight, when you get your enemies to help you disarm Iran.
China is looking good, but they have a long way to go.
"It is nearly as removed from reality as the American belief that the French are bad at wars."
Where is that French empire again? Do they still have a seat on the Security Council?
re: 85
Remind of the last major war the US won?
The idea that the US is the best at fighting evar is just comical.
re: 86
Funnily enough, they do. That's some spectacular self-pwning.
It's very interesting that Bob should consider for even a moment that America is a wonderful nation at fighting. I mean, this isn't an idea that is remotely credible outside the USA, as Matt McG says.
Give me a break. We pull out of interventionist type military conflicts because we've decided againt wholesale mass slaughter. Don't get me wrong, that's a good thing. But the Japanese were no slouches. They were cutting a pretty good swath across Asia until we got involved. Or more recently, take a good look at the 1991 Gulf War when Hussein decided on direct confrontation.
Gustavus Adolphus got nothing, accomplished nothing.
Bob! You big silly! Gustavus got Protestant northern Europe immediately, and the multi-state system ultimately. It was Karl XII who got nothing. And even so, Karl was a few coinflips away from making Russia a small nation.
The US can't take and hold territory.
That's nothing to be ashamed of. The ability to mount large-scale territorial conquest, rightly, isn't something we value anymore. But to claim that the US is somehow more mighty than many former forces that have been able to successfully do precisely that, is nuts.
It's all pie-in-the-sky fairyland nonsense. It's easy to claim that you could if you really wanted to.
But the fact is, that every time you've tried in the past 50 years, you've failed.
Brief interventions as part of a large international coalition -- as in Gulf War I -- aren't remotely the same.
Most of the European nations have long since lost their delusions of military prowess and grandeur. It's high time the US did the same.
88:Barely hanging on to it, and no longer deserving. The insult was in the irony and indifference.
Nations build empires not thru skills and technology, but with "will". Why Rome? Why Britain?
Because they wanted it. Yeah, we lost a meaningless war that was fought like most imperialist wars, for domestic political reasons. We did not then withdraw and disarm. The lessons of the 80s and Iraq should be that America did not learn any lesson from Vietnam, because that lesson would cause a crisis of identity.
What other developed country would go into Iraq, wage the kind of war we are waging, spend a trillion dollars, commit atrocities at home and abroad? America is the best at war because we are willing to go fight them. In Granada, Panama, Somalia, name it. We like war. Or don't dislike it enough to impeach, defeat Senators, elect peacable Presidents, cut defense. You got a lot of work to do to convince me that we are Sweden controlled by a tiny psycho minority.
The only problem America really has with Iraq is that we aren't obviously winning. If we genocided the place we would get the parades.
Best at fighting war? I still stand by it. Three years of monstrousness in Iraq and the Sunni, Shia, and Kurds are asking us to stay. That is pretty slick shit.
I don't see the point in carrying on this argument. I'm not going to win.
I'd assumed that best at war meant, you know, 'most successful at it' rather than 'like doing it'. Or, you know, 'nation with biggest penis inadequacy complex'.
I don't see the point in carrying on this argument. I'm not going to win.
Yes!!! Another victory for America!
One of the nice things about Bob is that he makes Tim stop calling ME crazy.
The Swedes, of course, were controlled by psycho goons for a century or more. Look what it did to them.
Is will still relevant? I liked this:
My fear is simple: we lack the political will in this country to do what we need to do. The United States cannot turn things around without some pain--whether in the form of a draft, tax increases, or some other unpopular policy--and no politician with Presidential aspirations will ever directly admit that one cannot make a bad situation better without concrete and unpleasant sacrifices.
Not that I think a draft would reverse Bush's amazing failure. But it brings out an interesting thing about the Green Lanternites who claimed that success in Iraq is a matter of will: They don't mean the will to do anything, other than just keep troops in Iraq I guess. Not the will to take steps that might have actually helped, like getting enough troops in to do the job (= draft or serious international force). It's hard work.
(Unusual error here, and the comment hasn't posted yet; apologies if this double-posts.)
Bob. Bob, Bob, Bob.
On our way down? We are sustaining and even increasing military spending while the rest of the world disarms. What do you think that means?
Two things:
1) That you've achieved a massively overpriced military that can't be deployed against comparable forces without triggering nuclear conflict (I think you'd better hope that future Presidents don't agree with your "nukes don't matter" theory), and that can't cope effectively with the kinds of irregular Third World forces it's thoughtfully helping to train in Iraq today.
2) That you're already at the point where the countries who once "paid tribute" to you have ceased to see the advantage in doing so, and your country is therefore effectively spending itself into the ground. So, that massively overpriced military isn't going to be around for very much longer.
It's probably a good time to start really thinking on the Russian experience, since today's America seems determined to produce its own rendition.
Nazis, Japanese, Soviets lost. They sucked at war.
Ummm, the Nazis lost in large part to the Soviets, dude. Almost all of the largest engagements of WWII were fought on the Eastern front. And the Soviets weren't beaten by the Americans in a shooting war.
Three years of monstrousness in Iraq and the Sunni, Shia, and Kurds are asking us to stay.
Ummm, no they're not.
In Granada, Panama, Somalia, name it.
Ouch. Surely if you're trying to cover America's military name in glory, you'd pick some more edifying examples.
"Almost all of the largest engagements of WWII were fought on the Eastern front"
What if Stalin had stopped at the border of Poland? They had to support the Eastern bloc for fifty years, and it was a large part of why they lost the cold war.
What if America and Britain had had to take Berlin? You are impressed with Stalin's strategic brilliance?
Who came out of WWII in a stronger position?
"Ouch. Surely if you're trying to cover America's military name in glory, you'd pick some more edifying examples."
I am not. You picture me as some sort of chickenhawk or dickswinger. I am just telling you what America is. A bully, an empire, someone who picks fights with little countries cus they can, because we like it.
Give m a million dollars, I am in Spain or Belize tomorrow. I shake the dust off my shoes on the way out. I hate this barbarous racist theocratic dump.
98: What if Stalin had stopped at the border of Poland? They had to support the Eastern bloc for fifty years, and it was a large part of why they lost the cold war.
That has little to do with their skill at war. It has to do with deficiencies in their political and economic system that eventually brought them down without war. The cold war is called "cold" because it never turned into direct warfare between the two superpowers.
And no, I'm not impressed with Stalin's strategic brilliance, actually. He was a big part of the reason Russia bled far more than it had to... but it says something that Russia came out on top regardless. overcoming apocalyptic odds to do so. So the fact remains that it's simply stupid to say the Soviets "sucked at war." They sucked at a whole lot of things, but war was emphatically not one of them.
99: You picture me as some sort of chickenhawk or dickswinger.
Didn't mean to do that, sorry.
I am just telling you what America is. A bully, an empire, someone who picks fights with little countries cus they can, because we like it.
Well, there we agree.
Umm, I'm not sure I see the point of the "best ever" conversation, but how is bob not self-evidently right? I don't sit around and wonder if a 1950s NBA player could compete in today's NBA--I know he couldn't. Is the argument that...dunno...Napoleon's armies were on magical flying horses, and the extra maneuverability would compensate for the 200 years of technology?
Here's the bridge: America has undoubtedly built the largest, most advanced military machine in human history, but the nature of warfare has changed in ways that severely undermine its efficacy. Our military is a giant hammer, but most of the conflicts today are bolts.
Right. There is (I believe while not knowing much about it) a fair argument that the current US military is the most powerful military ever in history -- advanced technology, training, all that stuff. I don't see a fair argument that the US has had unprecedented success in its use of military force, on the other hand -- we aren't looking at a worldwide Pax Americana.
And this: "Or, you know, 'nation with biggest penis inadequacy complex'."
is great. I want the t-shirt.
re: 102
I presume he meant 'best ever -- assessed relative to the time in which that army operated' otherwise the 'best ever' would just be whichever military happens to be dominant at any particular time. *
Past armies have been able to carry out massive invasions, hold territory for long periods of time, fight prolonged land and sea battles against contemporaries of similar technological prowess and man-power, etc. There have existed past armies with such a massive imbalance of power that they could take entire continents and hold them for years -- in some cases hundreds of years.
Making that sort of best-ever claim about a US army that has never been tested against a foe stronger than some jumped up third-world dictator seems strange to say the least.
* I agree, however, that given technological changes, that there is a sense in which it's a confused comparison to make at all and, at least, a difficult one to evaluate.
Back on topic a little, the "stab in the back", assuming we lose in Iraq and withdraw. I have been thinking about that all night. What does history tell us about countries that lose wars, but are not occupied? I come up with Athens, 1880s France, post Napoleon France, Weimar Germany, America in the 70s and 80s and an initial pattern of political and economic conservatism with cultural and artistic liberalism. The American South? Did they really lose?
Anybody else? Confirmations, refutations, reformulations?
What does history tell us about countries that lose wars, but are not occupied?
I don't think it provides any broadly generalizable lessons.
re: 106
Russia, 1917: lost - Bolshevik revolution [I know the timeline is complex since the surrender was signed by winners of the aforementioned revolution]
Weimar: in the longer term, after the period of artistic liberalism we know what happened next.
I don't know, there are lots of other examples.
Britain after losing in the US War of Independence, maybe?
Britain after Suez?
Britain after Korea?
.. after Kenya?
etc etc
Losing interventionist foreign wars needn't make a huge difference at home. I'm not sure if there's a common reaction. Although it's an interesting question.
I think Apostropher's right. We're in a wierd situation--our military can destroy any nascent Iraqi government at any time; we just can't get one to stand up and behave nicely. "Losses" like that--why would we care?
assuming we lose in Iraq and withdraw.
What if we withdraw anyway, without losing? I'm not trying to be obtuse, but the elected government in Iraq, FWIW, wants the Americans and the British out, so perhaps we should respect their wishes.
I come up with Athens, 1880s France, post Napoleon France, Weimar Germany, America in the 70s and 80s
Not happy with all these. Athens was occupied long enough for its strategic defences to be dismantled, and then a comprador government was installed. Things were simpler in those days, so extended occupation was unnecessary. Post Napoleon France was likewise briefly occupied, and Weimar had to contend with the French eyeballing them across the Rhine and moving in troops in 1924 when they didn't think the reparations were coming fast enough.
Equally, I hesitate at your assertion of "an initial pattern of political and economic conservatism". In most of these examples, the defeated state didn't choose its own government. Weimar was initially pretty damn radical, politically. I can't think of any other capitalist state in the early 20th century that had workers' councils written into its constitution.
America in the 70s and 80s is the exception that proves the rule. They did choose their own government, because the North Vietnamese couldn't do anything about it even if they wanted. They chose Jimmy Carter.
The American South? Did they really lose?
Well, if history is written by the victors, they won hands down. But I don't think you can generalise from civil wars to international ones.
Here's the bridge: America has undoubtedly built the largest, most advanced military machine in human history, but the nature of warfare has changed in ways that severely undermine its efficacy. Our military is a giant hammer, but most of the conflicts today are bolts.
I would add only having the the largest, most advanced military machine in human history has blinded us, or at least our current political leadership, to the fact that there are certain problems that simply cannot be solved through the application of military force, no matter how overwhelming. In fact, the use of force in such situations tends to make matters worse.
Shorter 111: When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
The US undoubtedly has the capacity to deliver huge amounts of high explosive from long distances with a fair degree of precision.
That's the hammer they have and which makes them inclined to see everything as nail.
However, as Apostropher points out , even lots of tasks -- even military ones -- don't lend themselves to the use of that particular hammer.
Is 73 correct? Isn't he just saying that given current preferences among people who vote, the only way to get a Congressional majority (either a veto-proof one or plus a President) in favor of new social programs (Universal Health Care) is if there's also a majority in favor of speculative wars (not necessarily the same majority).
111-112: This is why I don't support the massive amounts of defense spending we do. I know it's kind of a tired argument, but seriously, when we spend as much money as we do on the military, on weapons development, on infrastructure, we simply will not go more than 15-20 years or so without having a major war. As someone who thinks war is unjustified in almost all situations, especially now, this leads me to the conclusion that we've got to scale back.
So, yeah, I guess I'm one of those people who is ruining America, because I don't really "support the troops." I don't support their existence as such.
I don't see how 114 differs from 73.
I'm having trouble getting my mind around what victory in Iraq would even look like, by any reasonable standards -- if we decide we're "fighting to win," how would we know when we've done so? How would we know when we've irrevocably lost? I don't understand what the standards could even be.
This is why they will never put me on the Transformative Democratic Change Through Military Force committee, I suppose.
73 seems to assume some constant amount of conservatives when it says things like, "[D]omestic policy goals are never going to be accomplished as long as conservatives can focus their energies on blocking them. His solution is to invade and conquer the Middle East, which will keep the conservatives occupied (and kill off many of them)." I'm thinking that (in Bob's scenario)conservatives will still be able to focus their energies on anything they damn well please, there will just be fewer of them, and not fewer becase they've been killed, but because people who would vote for them are voting for the domestic policy liberals in favor of speculative wars.
117: The goal is not to win. The goal is to always be at war so that more and more power can be centralized in the executive branch.
That George Orwell sure was a perceptive fellow, wasn't he?
119: Do you think that was always the goal? I hope not, otherwise, we've got some lying sons-of-bitches in office (not that we don't have such already). I don't think we need to stay in Iraq to always be at war. That's why we have the War On Terror, the most undefinable, unwinnable, perpetual war of them all.
It's my tin-foil belief that Iraq was solely for the purpose of getting position to attack Iran. I'm fairly certain they really did believe Iraq would be an easy transition (despite, oh, every piece of historical evidence ever) and they could then move directly on to bombing Tehran.
So yeah, eternal war was the goal, they just didn't think the warm-up act would stay on stage quite this long.
119: I don't think that's the goal; it's just a nice by-product.
we've got some lying sons-of-bitches in office
Well, yes. This has been long established.
I don't think we need to stay in Iraq to always be at war.
That's where we're building the bases in order to wage war on the rest of the region.
Apo:
I don't really think there was just one reason for going into Iraq. I think the neocons on both sides of the aisle had their agenda, the VP had his, Rumsfeld his, Dems looking to stay in office theirs, the DLC had its own, etc. Part of the trouble we're having with sorting out conditions defining success or failure is that we have a lot of different projects bound up in Iraq, and the conditions for the success of one don't parallel the conditions for the success of the next.
Yes, many people had different agendas that coalesced around invading Iraq. But the neo-cons and Bush's messianic complex are the ones in charge and "remaking the Middle East" is their grand project.
126: I don't know if that's right. Bush still needs to have support to prosecute the war. "Neocon" is becoming a slur. Right now, I think policy is being set by the Toby Keith yahoos--there's no real goal, only the guiding belief that if you're in a fight, you must win it or be judged a pussy.
But the thing about defeat is that it will offer a set of outcomes which would all have been unacceptable to all the various factions in favour of the war when they started it.
But the thing about defeat is that it will offer a set of outcomes which would all have been unacceptable to all the various factions in favour of the war when they started it.
What does "defeat" mean in this context? I think this is another poorly defined line that is dependent on the specific project you're talking about. If we leave tomorrow, some part of the Right will hang its hat on the fact that Hussein is gone.
I don't know if that's right.
I did state at the outset that it was my tinfoil belief.
re: 131
I think one of the lessons of the last few years is that the tinfoil hat wearing crazies aren't always crazy.
130: was there _any_ part of the right which would have settled for that at the beginning of the war?
War What is it Good For Am I pwned by Carl Schmitt? Can't tell yet.
So Good It Needs a New Name MY on Progressive Realism, and "drama" in Democratic Foreign policy. more framing. Matt also has a Strauss post up. Unfogged is looking a little not with it. The kool kids are all talking Schmitt and Strauss. God knows why.
We were talking about what a mistake it was for Sweden to try to hold onto that bit of Pomerania it held in the 17th century despite the lack of a naturally defensible border long before it was cool, Bob.
Really Bob? There are very few Carl Schmitt mentions, and they're mostly Emerson mentioning him.
There will always be an element that believes that anti-war activists such as A.N.S.W.E.R. and Code Pink have distracted the public from focusing on what we are trying to do in Iraq. It is obvious to me that the "war" was won pretty decisively, but the "occupation" has been problematic. But I also think that we need to see what other actors are participating in the "occupation". There are many (Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia) that are actively trying to keep the insurgency going long enough for the people of the United States to get tired of seeing the blooshed on their TVs every night. This low level, 4th generation warfare is very easy to sustain, even without support from the local population. I totally agree with 122 that Iraq was just setting the stage for the war with Iran. Oh, and by the way, when that war comes, those of you who don't think that the US armed forces will win decisively on the battlefield are delusional. What will happen after the fall of the mullahs? The Shah's son has been making alot of noise.
Oh, and by the way, when that war comes, those of you who don't think that the US armed forces will win decisively on the battlefield are delusional.
Well, as long as you plan to think US will have won, at least you don't plan to blame the anti-war movement for making us lose.
Oh, and by the way, when that war comes, those of you who don't think that the US armed forces will win decisively on the battlefield are delusional.
TLL, I don't disagree with anything you say in your first five sentences, though I would probably dispute the importance of the outside help to the ability of different militias and other insurgent groups to perpetuate themselves. But, if "delusional" is your pejorative of choice in what I quoted, how do you describe people who think that is the most important, or even a particularly relevant, question? "Spittle dribbling off their chin, so disconnected from reality that they're scared of their shoes, nuttier than a Snickers bar crazy"?
, but the "occupation" has been problematic.
Is it just that you can't spell "unmitigated disaster"?
I'm sorry, I missed the quote you are referring to. My point is that the United States, should it choose to, would make short work of the Iranian Army, Navy and Air Force. Irregular forces are a different matter, as we are seeing in Iraq. I further feel that Rumsfeld has been too focused on "transformation" and has a bean counter mentality that leads him to believe that small numbers of highly trained, special ops types backed by UAVs etc. will in the long run be more effective, and cheaper by reducing manpower costs. This hasn't helped in Iraq, and won't if we have to occupy Iran as well.
I think that the disaster has been quite mitigated.
TLL, my comment (140) begins with italic text, that italic text quotes you. In that text you described people who hold a particular view as delusional. I asked, rather harshly, why holding that view or not is relevant to anything. Also, I call invading Iran while fighting an insurgency in Iraq, "asking to be double enveloped," though there is probably no force in Iraq with the organization to do it.
I think that the disaster has been quite mitigated.
By what, exactly?
145: Well, the war profiteers are making out handsomely...
As to being double enveloped, we are in Afghanistan also, so the map is looking like the early stages of a game of Go.
As to what mitigation, I think the fact that there have been several elections and a duly constituted Parliment counts for something. Look, I for one do not expect Iraq to be Denmark by next year, but deposing the tyrant was a necessary first step. Bush 41 did not want the headache that Bush 43 has, but our our betrayal of the Sunni uprising in 1991, and our lack of manpower immedeately after the fall of Baghdad has allowed factions who cannot allow a liberal democracy to develop in Iraq to make tcertain parts of Iraq unstable.
but deposing the tyrant was a necessary first step.
Because...? First step to...?
147: Shi'a uprising. </pedantry>
"Several elections" have resulted in a government in charge of nothing much, really, beyond Shi'a death squads. Hell, there were elections under Saddam. Color me unimpressed.
I think that the disaster has been quite mitigated.
By what, exactly?
That probably should be more like "by whom?" so that the answer could be Ali al-Sistani.
Well, since you asked, I think that the 9/11 attacks changed the way that Americans look at the world. We were no longer in our splendid isolation , and did not have to travel to foreign countries to be menaced by terrorists. So, since the primary job of any government is to protect its citizens, the decision was made to change some of the underlying dynamics. Who is the largest sponsor of global terror, why it's our friends the Saudis, and our former friends, the Iranians. Shall we depose the house of Saud, and restore the Hashemites, or perhaps even a democracy. We cannot, for we have no casus belli, and further disruption of the oil flow will be difficult. Who do we have a casus belli with? The Butcher of Baghdad, who has violated the ceasefire agreement repeatedly and is flaunting the UN sanctions. France and Russia are lobbying to remove the sanctions. Time to fix this problem once and for all. And he has the second largest reserves to boot, so reliance on the House of Saud becomes less of an issue. I think that these are the opening scenes of what the President has said will be a long war. I also agree that the President has made a fundamental mistake by not galvinizing public support for this venture by asking for shared sacrifice.
I think that the 9/11 attacks changed the way that Americans look at the world.
Which is to say, we as a country peed in our pants when twenty morons and associated support staff were able to kill .001% of our citizenry; when the invasion of Afghanistan went too well, and it looked like we might be able to wrap up the killing of the people who actually attacked us well before Toby Keith had fallen off the charts, we decided to invade Iraq.
SCT- I don't know if it was that we peed our pants and more that after Beirut, Khobar, the USS Cole the Kenyan Embassy etc, the reaction was, hey these guys really are trying to kill us.
Except none of them had jack to do with Iraq.
Dude, we weren't in splendid isolation before 9-11; most Americans simply didn't pay attention to international news. (And US embassies, even ones located in Africa, count as sovereign land.)
"Well, since you asked, I think that the 9/11 attacks changed the way that Americans look at the world."
To what question could this possibly have been a response?
Is this a correct paraphrase of the rest of your argument: "Because al-qaida flew planes into the world trade center and pentagon, it became necessary for us to invade Iraq, who was not directly tied to those attacks, in the stead of Saudi Arabia"? If not, please explain. If so, please explain much further.
No- the correct paraphrase would be that in order to eventually topple the regimes in both Saudi Arabia and Iran it is necessary to invade Iraq.
155 was to 151. It kind of addresses 153, too, though, by indirectly making the point that, yes, Islamic fundamentalist violence was a gathering problem during the 1990s, and that a lot of the people who only started paying attention after 9-11 have embraced some fairly stupid ideas about how to deal with it.
157--I can only wonder at the timeline for that "eventually."
But please tell me you weren't serious about the Shah's son.
[T]he primary job of any government is to protect its citizens....
If we have to talk about a primary job of government, how about: doing whatever those things are which would be really difficult to do without coerced collective action. Certainly national defense is a very prominent one of those. But really, the only people who should go around saying what you said are minarchists.
[T]he decision was made to change some of the underlying dynamics.
Ok, but by change the underlying dynamics do you mean, as you appear to say, make sure that Saddam wasn't running Iraq (no matter what happened to Iraq after this) and either expropriate or get a really good deal on their oil? I can say that I don't think the American blood and treasure we've spent wasn't worth it to achieve those goals, to say nothing of the Iraqi lives lost.
Does 157 say, "the lives of every Iraqi has only instrumental value to me?" That's how I read "to eventually topple the regimes in both Saudi Arabia and Iran it is necessary to invade Iraq." And the goals of those subsequent invasions will be to topple the regimes and replace them with whomever survives chaotic civil wars, right?
151: So, since the primary job of any government is to protect its citizens, the decision was made to change some of the underlying dynamics.
And they're all now changed, for the worse. "Opposing the tyrant" was a necessary first step to destroying Iraq, precipitating a civil war and papering over the ugly realities with cosmetic elections, constitutions and parliaments. The war is now a terrorism recruitment and training bonanza which looks set to be expanded beyond Afghanistan and Iraq to Iran or Syria or both.
But the oil barons are making out like bandits and the permanent bases are coming along nicely... oddly enough the two things that most hawks constantly denied as possible motivations for the war. And whoever said it above was dead right: no matter how miserable this situation becomes, there will always be someone saying "well, at least Hussein is gone!" Just like there will always be someone "discovering" that "there really were 'WMD'!"
157 is, imho, insane.
Also, I think that winning a war against Iran would be a lot harder than you think. A lot of Iraqis were happy to have us invade. When Iraq and Iran were fighting after the Shah fell, the stories were that political prisoners who had been military officers under the Shah begged to be let out of jail in order to fight for the new regime. Because it was their country. That kind of morale means a lot, and if you balance it against the incredibly crappy morale our forces would have pursuing a third war--for some of the career guys, a fourth war--in the Middle East (and are we going to supply it with troops and materiel as well as we did the last one? And by "well" I mean "badly"), I'm not so sure you can just assume it'll be a cakewalk.
159- I'm only serious in that I've heard him speak and I know he's trying to get attention. I don't think anyone takes him seriously, though. I have no idea how long "eventually" is, although if events in the Levant spin out of control, I think it will be sooner rather than later.
160- yes, I think that making sure Saddam wasn't running Iraqis key. He was willing to sell the oil, and we were willing to buy, so I don't think that that was the case. But what he did with the funds after the sale was the issue. As for the innocent Iraqis- I am tempted to be glib and say the strong do as they will and the weak suffer what they must, but in fact the slaughter of the innocents is being accomplished by the insurgents. Our responibility is to help the nacent Iraqi government regain control without resorting to the thuggish behaviour of its predecessor.
It is obvious to me that the "war" was won pretty decisively, but the "occupation" has been problematic.
Here's the thing. We got the bomb. We can win any war we want quite decisively. Everything's pretty peaceful once everyone's dead.
But raw military strength isn't what we're talking about, and if we are, we shouldn't be talking about it. We can blow up the world many times over, but that's not what winning a war means these days, if it ever did. Winning the War on Terror? Give me some precise conditions and I'll let you know if it's possible.
Winning the war in Iraq? Not accomplished just by defeating the Iraqi army, especially if you think it's part of the War on Terror. Demolishing Iran's army? Probably harder, but certainly doable. But winning the war isn't about our ability to kick some small country's ass; if it's about anything, it's about improving American security with a side of spreading democracy.
On the measure that matters, we are not good at winning wars. We're good at beating armies. We have little success against guerilla warfare. We ain't doin' so hot at rebuilding. Moving the goalposts? Maybe. But that's what you get when you want to be a benign superpower. Killing people is easy.
162- It may be insane, but I guarantee you it was the thinking. And it won't be a cakewalk if we have to fight Iran. We will have alot more casualties than we are used to seeing. But I also don't think we will attack Iran without some sort of provocation that will allow us no choice, much like 9/11 and Afghanistan.
164- I concur, and I think that it has been a failing of the Army especially to shy away from the "nation building" thing. It is probably not the Army's job, but it has to be done if we decide we are going to topple regimes. Which may I preemptively say- we have neither the manpower or collective will to do everywhere it needs doing.
Which is a good argument for not invading Iraq. It's not like Iran was an unknown threat, nor that Iraq was as large a one as it was made out.
With regards to 163 part 2: I wasn't making the oil point, I thought you were when you said, "And he has the second largest reserves to boot, so reliance on the House of Saud becomes less of an issue."
I think Bush's greatest failure was in not spelling out what would need to be done, and the sacfrifices that would be necessary. I think that the administration was snookered by Chalabi, and they thought they could do the nation building on the cheap. But the Republicans have won the elections because the Democrats ahve yet to put up a set of policies that addresses the post 9/11 mindset of the electorate.
please explain how 157 is not encapsulated in 156 (and is not insane).
The two countries are relatively close to each other. Otherwise I cannot see how invading one has anything to do with toppling the other. If anything the rising price of oil and the rising appeal of militiant islam--two direct results of the war thus far--have been very good for the Saudis.
"The post 9/11 mindset of the electorate" isn't some given that just appears out of nowhere.
It's partly a creation of politicians who have a vested interest in that mindset developing in a particular way. There are a number of ways the state can respond to that kind of terrorist attack and not all of them involve creating and exploiting a climate of fear in the electorate.
Lots of other nations have been subject to terrorist attack* and not all of them have promoted the same climate of fear.
* Of course, none have experienced individual attacks of such scale but several have experienced cumulative attacks over decades ...
Yeah. I do wonder if everyone who thinks that the US is obviously 'at war' with 'terror' because the 9-11 attacks were acts of war against it also thinks that the UK was 'at war' with 'terror' when the IRA was blowing up bits of London every so often. Or is it only a war on terror when it happens to us?
To bring the discussion full circle, it will be difficult to use the "stabbed in the back" meme when nothing has been asked of us. What have we failed to do.
170- geographic proximity, and the ensuing logistics are precisely the point. It may be insane, but I'm not a doctor.
what are the ensuing logistics? Saudi Arabia had a vested interest in Iraq not producing oil--which it is now not doing. Hussein wanted to sell oil when the sanctions were lifted, and several countries (not use) were very interested in buying. What side of the war debate does this put the Saudis on, exactly?
re: 172
Precisely, and I think that people from the US are often unaware of the level of IRA campaigns over decades. Occasional attacks sort of understates it.
There were well over 1000 bomb attacks in 1972 alone -- over 20 on a single day in a single location, in one particular incident. Most of them on a fairly small scale but the cumulative number over the 30 years of the 'Troubles' is pretty mind-boggling.
I think Bush's greatest failure was in not spelling out what would need to be done, and the sacfrifices that would be necessary.
He two choices: tell the truth about the cost of his moronic plan, or get his war. He couldn't do both.
But the Republicans have won the elections because the Democrats ahve yet to put up a set of policies that addresses the post 9/11 mindset of the electorate.
I've never bought this. I think Dems haven't convinced the American public that we're "to
At any rate, the war was not sold to the public via the "let's knock out the Saudis by punching that other fellow standing next to them first" rationale, and I doubt it would have been a successful sale had that been the slogan.
Let's get out of this bullshit strategy talk. I don't care why the elections turned out as they did. Give me a compelling rationale for this war.
174- If our troops are already in Iraq- it is easier to invade Saudi Arabia. Why else do you think we are building those permanent bases? We are moving out of Europe and into the Middle East. The difference is- without some sort of external threat the way the Soviets were to Western Europe, will the Arabs of any nation want us there?
Most Arabs view us as the external threat.
Fuck. Following on:
But the Republicans have won the elections because the Democrats ahve yet to put up a set of policies that addresses the post 9/11 mindset of the electorate.
I've never bought this, though Dems didn't help themselves by shillyshallying all over the place on Iraq. The real problem is that Dems haven't convinced the American public that we're "tough enough to do the job." And the worst way to go about creating such an impression is to run from fights that the Republicans bring. If, during one of the debates, John Kerry had cold-cocked George Bush and peed on him, he wouldn't have become President. But neither would George Bush.
Coup de tęte! Coup de tęte!
text, I think that rationale would have sold. Most of the country likes beating up on people we think are bad.
179- it depends on which war you are talking about. The invasion of Iraq, taken in isolation, has little justification other than 'freedom" for the Iraqis. Taken as a small part in the war against Islamic fundamentalism, it makes sense as the beginning of a long process to change the political landscape of the Middle East. But for 9/11, there would have been no invasion of Iraq. We would have let the sanctions expire, and Uday would Qusay would eventually have taken over.
Didn't we already have troops stationed in Saudi Arabia before this war? Don't the Saudis in fact depend on us for support? The best way to topple the Saudi regime would be to simply have withdrawn troops from the area.
We didn't need permanent bases in order to stage the Iraqi invasion. The Saudis barely even have a military. We're building the bases for military purposes, surely, but not directed against Saudi Arabia.
We removed our troops from KSA to Qatar.
Uh, our troops were already in Saudi long before we invaded Iraq...
and Uday would Qusay would eventually have taken over.
Who, by all accounts, were dim-witted psychos. They would have been topped within a year by the military.
Weiner-pwned. The point still stands, and Qatar is just as close to KSA as Iraq is.
The war only makes sense as a part of long process to conquer the middle east, yes. But in what way does that goal make sense, and how is it at all feasible?
And the admission from a supporter of the war is frankly chilling. Do you work in government?
If we toppled the Saudi royal family, what the HELL would replace them? From what I've read, the folks waiting in the wings in Saudi Arabia could be fairly characterized as theocratic nutcases.
Thanks for the response to my question about young Pahlavi. While it's a bad sign that he's actively jockeying for relevance, I'm glad to hear that he's still not considered a serious contender.
I forgot about this: after Beirut, Khobar, the USS Cole the Kenyan Embassy etc, the reaction was, hey these guys really are trying to kill us.
We should have known before. Mostly, I think that's just the cost of doing business in the modern world. I assume we were doing similar in other countries, through proxies. And we absolutely could have (and probably did) respond to each and every one of those without invading another country.
SCMTim gets it so right in 188. That might have been the best possible outcome, actually.
182- SCT- I totaly agree. Would have been funny to watch.
190- conquer is an ugly word. reshape the political landscape is what we are going for.
191- text, I'm not that much of a leech.
reshape the political landscape is what we are going for.
The Middle East is not clay to be sculpted, and the US army is no scalpel.
You are just playing with words now. Alexander the Great reshaped a lot of political landscapes.
Ok- too glib. What are the "root causes" of terrorism? I state that political frustration caused by despotism and abetted by radical fundamentalism and sponsored by vast sums of oil revenue are the root causes. How do we, as Americans, or westerners or just people who do not want to be attacked respond to this threat? The actions being taken are certainly one way of addressing these causes. If there is a better way, let's hear it. And, "not the way your doing it now" is not very enlightening.
The actions being taken are certainly one way of addressing these causes.
For a long time, being a conservative meant believing that it was really, really hard to address cultural root causes. If one doesn't believe that we can't affect urban blight, I have no idea why one would think we can completely change a region of the world while under hostile fire.
I think that what we are doing in Iraq is proving to be very hard. It may get easier, soon, depending on what happens in the Levant. I think the dominoes are falling.
The dominoes are falling? The only way I can see the recent progess of events as trending favorable to the US is if the regional Shia-Sunni war distracts Muslims from attacking the US.
I want to thank the commenters here on unfogged for engaging in a civil dialogue in what is obviously a contentious issue. I'll check in later, I'm sure.
We try. We fail frequently, but we try.
TLL, I said some unduly harsh things to you in this thread, my bad.
Well I hope you do return, TLL.
Here's my response, for what it's worth:
(1) take military action against Afghanistan (which we did) to scour, over the course of several years, that country and neighboring countries for al-qaida members (which we did not do). Maintain a military presence in Afghanistan. This should never have been a "war on terror"--and it never really was; the word "terror" was used to encompass a bunch of vague, heterogeneous goals--but a war against a specific entity which had committed a greivous act. A war against al-qaida and al-qaida alone could have been won.
A lot of people would stop at (1). But I don't think American influence in the world at large is wrong, and at any rate, the public seems to desire it. Intolerant governments always present threats. The thing to do is to diffuse the threats, where possible, before starting a war--not to start a war on the pretense that a threat might exist.
I would treat islamic governments as we treated the soviet union. Ramp up the rhetoric, contain them. Intolerance is to be opposed abroad and at home. But we're not playing Risk here. Invading an intolerant part of the world is not likely to make its populace more tolerant, or more supportive of our way of life.
The goal should have been containment of islamic governments, focusing on change in the more tolerant nations. Turkey has a long cultural history, a respectful one. Change can be accomplished from within. It sounds fuzzy and lame, but really, the way to win over people who dislike us is to act as a benevolent force, not to invade.
Wait, are we talking about Turkey? Did I miss something?
Turkey has a long cultural history, a respectful one.
My recollection is that Turkey de-Islamicized sort of violently, but I defer to anyone who is not working off of a forgotten article in a forgotten magazine.
No, there wasn't really any actual violence, but it's not exactly the paragon of a civil-liberties-infused republic. Insofar as the freedom to practice religion is a human right (is it? Some people certainly consider it as such) and the deprivation of a human right is violence, then yeah, it's violent.
The thing is, Turkey isn't really all that de-Islamicized, especially not now under the AKP (a religious party). All that's been done is remove all appearance of religion from government. A lot of it was more about being similar to Europe, like, say, changing the weekend from Friday/Saturday to Saturday/Sunday, which seems silly, to not have off on the day 90% of your population considers sabbath/equivalent, just so you can be more like France or whatever.
there's a right wing move that goes: "well if not invasion, then what? See, you're bereft of ideas."
It just seemed to me that if we were going about things as we had been under Clinton, and if we'd kept Europe on our side, the place to look for westernization would be Turkey. I'm fairly ignorant on the subject, but just wanted to point out that there are interventionist strategies beyond invasion.
not to mention that the move itself is disengenuous. There are all sorts of things for which there's no easy answer, and an obviously wrong answer isn't a better alternative than thinking about it for awhile.
That's all for tonight, folks. Stay tuned next week when I continue to Say Obvious Things That We All Agree About In General Terms.
Does anyone else read Iraq The Model? Were they the ones accused of being paid flacks? Doesn't matter, I have a "death of a friend" post saved which gives them creds enough for me.
No More Half Solutions Gonna be, gotta be WWIII. Bring it on, says Mohammed. And he is nearer the target zome than me.