If Iraqis voted "stay," we'd have a mandate to do what's necessary to win, and our ideals would be reaffirmed. If they voted "go," our values would also be reaffirmed, and we could leave with honor.
I think we should toss a coin, and let the Iraqis call it. That way whatever happens, it's the coin's fault.
If we had known then what we know now, we would never have gone to war with Iraq in 2003.
Yeah, well, except that we did know then what we know now.
I must confess that one of the things that made me reluctant to conclude that the Iraq war was a mistake was my general distaste for the shabbiness of the arguments on the antiwar side.
You know, if there's one thing that makes me angrier than another about these "Hey, whoda thunk it? This turned out to be a really bad idea!" it's the refusal to acknowledge that the arguments being made against the war beforehand (1) made sense (2) were based on real information, and (3) TURNED OUT TO BE RIGHT.
You can't dismiss the anti-war arguments (which, in hindsight, you now agree led to the right conclusion) as 'shabby' unless you're going to explain what was wrong with them. Hint: the fact that someone who's been seen near a giant puppet agrees with them does not qualify as a refutation of the arguments.
In general, the phrase "If we'd known then what we know now" means "If I'd known then what you knew then".
And were, you know, trying to tell me. Repeatedly. While I stuck my fingers in my ears and said "Lalalala I'm not listening!"
4, 5: The shabbiness of your comments prevents me from taking you seriously.
Pantload pirouettes, proposes plebiscite.
Hee hee! Best headline in months.
WTF does 'shabby' even mean in this context? I've never seen it used as a synonym for unconvincing or inaccurate before.
aaaa. insert your favorite sound effects for incoherent spluttering here. sentences like that make me want to gouge my eyes out! and it's a whole column full of them!
You know, if there's one thing that makes me angrier than another about these "Hey, whoda thunk it? This turned out to be a really bad idea!" it's the refusal to acknowledge that the arguments being made against the war beforehand (1) made sense (2) were based on real information, and (3) TURNED OUT TO BE RIGHT.
The basic argument that many, many anti-Iraq war folk spun out was the same as that made by radical yippie activist Brent Scowcroft. It laid out the very path being trod by chastened Republicans. This Red ploy of denying that the arguments made were made drives me nuts, too.
WTF does 'shabby' even mean in this context?
Oh, he's just projecting.
He's the tired toy that everyone's enjoyed
He wants to be a fancy man
But he's nothing but a nancy boy
He's all pride and no joy
And being what you might call a whore
Always worked for me before
Now I'm a shabby doll
I am in favor of having Goldberg go door to door in Iraq to conduct his plebiscite. Coward. He sees the handwriting on the wall and is trying to get in front of it. Where is the courage of your convictions, Jonah? You need to watch more Star Trek. Kirk always fixed things before the end.
Somehow deciding to boldly violate the Prime Directive doesn't straighten everything out in real life the same way.
>I think we should ask the Iraqis to vote on whether U.S. troops should stay.
This isn't all that stupid. Iraqis want us to go and this will give us a good excuse. It will also blunt any "stabbed in the back" criticism of democrats.
3 and 4 are, of course, right.
WTF does 'shabby' even mean in this context?
Presumably along the lines of the role it plays in "that's a shabby excuse for a pundit."
14: Actually, it is pretty stupid. I think Iraqis have been voting with their IEDs.
What's really scary is that by Corner standards the Pantload is above average for both honesty and critical thought, despite being a complete and total douchebag.
Coward.
A-fucking-men. He isn't even courageous (or coherent) enough to take a stand in the space of a single column. On the one hand, we can't leave now that we've stabbed Iraq in the chest; on the other--if the Iraqis assured us that it was only a flesh wound, then we could leave with our honor intact. What I wouldn't give to pants that man.
But I think a lot about how people who had much more riding on the outcome of the war than Goldberg must feel now. What do people like Kanan Makiya--or even Paul Wolfowitz (Packer suggests that Wolfowitz, deluded though he was about the prospects of a liberated, democratic Iraq, was at least sincere in his desire to see one) think of when they look at what Iraq's become?
It does give me some hope that we have Sausagely and Ezra Klein and they have Goldberg.
In 2004 most GOP pundits and candidates were traveling downstream in their "swiftboats" attacking every Democratic candidate that dared to criticize the Bush administration's war in Iraq. In 2006 you not only can't find the GOP "swiftboat", you can't find a Republican willing to jump in and try to navigate the hapless dingy against the strong current of voter dissatisfaction with the seemingly never ending war.
Someone throw Jonah a lifeline!
Read more here:
The J.G. column says: The failure to find weapons of mass destruction is a side issue. The WMD fiasco was a global intelligence failure, but calling Saddam Hussein's bluff after 9/11 was the right thing to do.
That's the part that really pissed me off. He's nuts. The WMDs were the ONLY reason to invade Iraq in a hurry and with too few troops to deal with the aftermath. If they existed I don't have any doubt Al Q would have been able to score some and use them, with or without Saddam's approval.
Given they didn't exist, the smart thing would have been to do all that "democracy building" in Afghanistan instead of repeating the neglect that put the Taliban in power in the first place.
#11: I love that song. Imperial Bedroom is an awesome album, too.
As to Jonah's argument, well, there is something to the notion that a broken clock is right twice a day. If you say every single war will turn into a quagmire, eventually, you'll say it about a war, or an occupation, that does bog down in a quagmire.
Shorter 22: Douchebaggery is contagious.
Imperial Bedroom is an awesome album, too.
Pretty much my favorite EC album, for sentimental reasons.
If you say every single war will turn into a quagmire
I don't think anybody predicted Grenada, Panama, or Bosnia would devolve into quagmires. It's a safe bet that wars of occupation that are launched without any inkling of an exit plan will become quagmires. Getting that one right really isn't a matter of luck.
What Apostropher said. Moreover, the quagmire argument was hardly the only one against the war. Frankly, I don't think that anyone against the war thought it would go quite this far to hell. That this was an idiotic war was completely obvious from the outset. Anyone who thought otherwise should have a minder.
19 It pisses me off that a completely lame guy like Goldberg has a better job than Sausagely and a lot of other very sharp people. I used to like the Wonkette chick but she's been promoted far above her talent by now, and I can't believe that she didn't screw her way to the top.
26: I have to believe that on some level douchebags know that they're douchebags and suffer for it. My wife insists that I'm full of shit, but I have to believe it to be able to face the world. And working for Kathryn Lopez would have to be hard on the self-respect even if you were getting paid decently for sitting around in your Doritos-stained pajamas writing third-rate bullshit. (Not that I wouldn't be willing to try it if the money were there.)
and I can't believe that she didn't screw her way to the top.
That's a bit much, Emerson. You're not suggesting that Goldberg screwed his way to the top, too. Or, for gawd's sake, Sullivan. Or Beinart. Or...jeebus...Boot. There are a lot of crap analysts out there. Which suggests to me that the magazines are selling something other than analysis.
Yglesias will be fine. He's probably at the head of a pretty good class of would-be journalist/pundits. Unless it's Berman. Or Plumer.
Longer #23: I like using tired Internet memes and grade-school namecalling in place of actual thought.
#24: I don't think anybody predicted Grenada, Panama, or Bosnia would devolve into quagmires.
As for De/nnis Me/nos of Bethesda, Maryland, I don't see how his preference for nonviolent conflict resolution makes the Iraq war a good idea.
jesus, GB, I have no idea whether or not people thought those conflicts would be quagmires, but a single guy writing in to the NYT is a long, long, long way from being a significant data point.
34: That's why it's not worth engaging with people who think that they can justify their own lack of critical thought by finding someone, somewhere who might have gotten the right answer for the wrong reason, especially when they can't manage even that much.
You can't even blame the guy writing in. He doesn't make any predictions about the outcome whatsoever. That's some schmoe at the NYT horribly mistitling a letter.
"Just fuck off, GB. Not in the mood."
This is why I mostly don't comment here any more. People find this acceptable.
(And I was thinking of making a similar point. Okay, better time spent elsewhere.)
Ooh, DaveL, I love it when you talk all tough. It's so manly. Sorry you're "not in the mood" to act like an adult, but what makes you think I'm in the mood to have you call me a "douchebag" and tell me to "fuck off"? You demean yourself, if that's possible.
And for the humor-challenged, #30 was tongue-in-cheek, as the "Does this count?" suggests.
38: I think that if you honestly review the last six years, you'll see that it's hard for a sane person to distinguish between humor and the farce that is the set of policies your party promotes.
Boy, I'm really feeling chastised now.
GB, really, you come in late to assert that Goldberg really does have a point because hippies really are dirty and smelly, you deserve a snarky response. I'm sorry that mine didn't meet your standards. Perhaps someone more qualified than I can tell you you're full of shit next time.
#39: Touché. But, I think that if you honestly review my Unfogged comments, you'll see that I make jokes a lot.
(Also, for the record, I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of the Republican party. I'm not a member of any political party.)
I'm the foremost cock expert of our time, and I think GB is a dick.
#40: ...you come in late to assert that Goldberg really does have a point because hippies really are dirty and smelly
I never said that.
Plus, calling someone "douchebag" is snarky? You're not exactly Oscar Wilde, are you?
You're not exactly Oscar Wilde, are you?
Nope. Are you looking for pointers on wit or buggery? There are people here who can help you out with either, but they may be sleeping now.
#42: I'm the foremost cock expert of our time, and I think GB is a dick.
Well, your expertise should come in handy once you finally drive away any and all contrary views from the comments here, because all you'll be left with is one big circle jerk.
I'm not going to try and do a comprehensive link roundup here to prove the point, but it's my sense that most opposition to the Iraq war back in 2002 and early 2003 was rooted not in any specific difficulties associated with invading Iraq, but in a general war-is-bad rejection of any use of US military force (and especially by a Republican president who everybody knows is HUNGRY FOR OIL!!!1!).
That's a morally sound and internally consisent view, yes. But it's silly to pretend that Iraq war opponents were all cold-eyed military analysts who crunched the numbers, studied the plans, knew the region, and dispassionately concluded that the invasion would fail.
(Preemptive clarification: Yes, I know there are some people out there who crunched the numbers, studied the plans, knew the region, and dispassionately concluded that the invasion would fail. But I don't think they are representative of most war opponents.)
This is why I mostly don't comment here any more. People find this acceptable.
So which was the unacceptable part? Was it the part with the swearing? Was it the general rudeness? Or was it the part where Dave refused to patiently and politely engage GB's inane strawman argument?
I don't think my #22 was an "inane strawman argument", and I've tried to make this more clear in #46.
OK, fine, let's stipulate to the fact that there were some non-trivial numbers of reflexively anti-war people who weren't particularly sophisticated or compelling in their critiques of the Iraq war in 2003. This isn't an admission I find it difficult to make--hell, some of them were my students at the time.
But that doesn't really do the likes of Jonah Goldberg and Gaijin Biker any good. The thing is, it would be even more ridiculous to suggest that there weren't serious critics of the war at the time as well, giving really good god damn reasons not to do it. I know, becuase--get this!--I was one of them. Serious people consider the serious arguments on the other side, not the frivolous ones. Only hacks working for a team rather than trying to sort through a serious problem focus on the worst arguments of the other side (except for occasional idle amusement through mockery, which is acceptable, but don't confuse it with actual debate).
47: Possibly it's that the Lebanon threads got a bit heated some time back and I was one of the antagonists. I don't know what, if anything, I'd do differently if we had those arguments to do over again, but Gary appeared to take it pretty personally and I feel bad about that.
sorry for misreading your tone, GB. I actually meant to ask if 30 was in humor, but somehow forgot to put that in.
To address this:
Preemptive clarification: Yes, I know there are some people out there who crunched the numbers, studied the plans, knew the region, and dispassionately concluded that the invasion would fail.
One of my teachers at the time put it more-or-less this way. "Iraq has a good-sized population, with some very densely populated areas. The people there have a lot of guns. A lot of the people there really hate each other. And they just aren't going to be huge fans of us, either. And, btw, they have a lot of guns. This is just NOT going to work."
It was not a dispassionate, number-crunching argument. It was simply an admission of basic realities that showed that no, this war venture just wasn't going to be that easy. I believe the Apostropher made similar arguments, IIRC. These arguments aren't mathematical proofs, but they turned out to be right, which I think shows that one should be very, very cautious of overly optimistic ideas of what we can accomplish militarily.
Anyway, GB, the tables could be turned. It's quite apparant to me that many of the war hawks were profoundly unserious Many were motivated by racial hatred. Others, including a couple of my teachers, who just though that America should stretch its muscles. Perhaps, though, there were some dispassionate, number-crunching war-mongers out there. But I'm not sure I knew any.
I don't think my #22 was an "inane strawman argument", and I've tried to make this more clear in #46
Oh, you mean where you claim that "most opposition to the Iraq war back in 2002 and early 2003 was rooted not in any specific difficulties associated with invading Iraq, but in a general war-is-bad rejection of any use of US military force (and especially by a Republican president who everybody knows is HUNGRY FOR OIL!!!1!)"? If you actually believe this, you're an idiot. If you don't, you're simply a tool.
If you'd actually been paying attention before the war, you might have heard what every prominent war skeptic repeated ad nauseum: that there was no casus bellum and that prospects for any postwar Iraq looked disastrous. Like broken records we were saying for months that Iraq had no real operational ties to al Qaeda, that there was no evidence that Saddam's nuclear program had been reactivated since the Gulf War, that there was serious doubt as to how much of his chemical and biological programs remained intact, that we couldn't afford to divert our military into Iraq while we were engaged in Afghanistan, that Iraqis would resent our military occupation just as much or more than they would thank us for removing Saddam, that the most likely successors to the Baathists wouldn't be liberal reformers but Shiite theocrats, that it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to reestablish order without a hell of a lot more troops, that sectarian divisions would almost certainly pull the country apart. All of these concerns were known to, constantly voiced by, and in fact the driving anxiety of the antiwar movement prior to the invasion.
Which, again, you'd already know if you'd been paying attention. But of course if you'd been paying attention, you might have realized the invasion was stupid in the first place. You fucking moron.
And a bunch of us were going around quoting GHW Bush's book on why he didn't go to Baghdad. And talking about how the economic guy got fired for quoting a huge (not so much, anymore) cost, and the general got repudiated for saying there needed to be a whole lot more troops.
53 is an important response to GB, but I'm worried he'll dismiss it on accounta the "you fucking moron" at the end, so I just want to repeat the salient point.
it's my sense that most opposition to the Iraq war back in 2002 and early 2003 was rooted not in any specific difficulties associated with invading Iraq, but in a general war-is-bad rejection of any use of US military force
This strikes me as a very shallow recollection of the state of the anti-war movement -- or a perception of the anti-war movement shaped entirely by video clips of ANSWER rallies.
Sure, some opposition to the war was based in dirty-hippie-dom, but there was plenty of (dare I say) serious opposition to the war, and it's not fair to dismiss it.
This post has been linked by the Salon's Daou report. Quite an honor, in my opinion.
On a less serious note, I'll just reference my theory that seriousness itself is often the problem. Before WWI, for example, all the serious, normal people of the various nations wanted war, and only the bohemians, cynics, anarchists, Czechs and other lowlifes did not. Serious people often have bloody-minded hidden agendas.
George Will, for example, is a very serious guy, and I think that the world would be a better place if he'd been locked up incommunicadoas a last-ditch Confederate illegal combatant starting in about 1980. Unfortunately, the law did not allow it at that time. But it does now.
George Will is a
It's my sense that most opposition to the Iraq war back in 2002 and early 2003 was rooted not in any specific difficulties associated with invading Iraq, but in a general war-is-bad rejection of any use of US military force.
The identification of the anti-war contingent with hippie Rastafarians with giant puppets was one of the main arguments convincing the liberal hawks. It was a mindless, kneejerk way to make policy decision even then, but a lot of people have learned a few things since then. And then there are others, like our GB, who are still playing their same old 2002 nostalgia tape over and over again.
George Will is a is an editing mitake.
The identification of the anti-war contingent with hippie Rastafarians with giant puppets was one of the main arguments convincing the liberal hawks. It was a mindless, kneejerk way to make policy decision even then, but a lot of people have learned a few things since then.
Right. Other people have said this, but it deserves repeating as often as possible: The fact that silly people agree with the conclusions of some argument does not discredit, or have anything to do with, the credibility of the argument. There is a very large number of silly people in the world, and they hold all possible political opinions. Anyone who believes that it makes sense to disagree with a well-supported conclusion because foolish people have come to the same conclusion is being an idiot.
Many liberal hawks were idiots in this regard. I respect the ones that have figured out the nature of their error, and I've certainly been as big an idiot, although on different issues, in the past. But anyone who is still standing up and identifying the silliness of 'the anti-war movement' as a respectable reason for supporting the war, rather than apologizing for having been enough of a nitwit to have been distracted from solid arguments by the existence of people who build puppets, is still being an idiot. Hi, GB!
To keep on hammering on GB:
(Preemptive clarification: Yes, I know there are some people out there who crunched the numbers, studied the plans, knew the region, and dispassionately concluded that the invasion would fail. But I don't think they are representative of most war opponents.)
See, whether something is a good idea is not determined by the average intelligence or good character of the people arguing for or against it. It's determined by whether, in reality, it is likely to turn out well. And the only way for people to determine that is to look at the best rather than the average arguments for and against.
You're a decent guy, GB, and I'm sorry if rudeness hurts your feelings, but the level of obtuseness you're putting on display is inevitably going to attract rudeness.
Let me jump in and endorse Emerson's remark about the serious people, the serious-minded. I may come off as solemn as a church and humorless, but in this I completely agree: the damage done by serious people, and by taking them at their own estimation of themselves is incalculable.
And it seems that this lesson has been manifest enough to be widely noticed and remarked on several times in my lifetime, most notably in the Vietnam Era. But the reputations of these people, and of their way of thinking, always spring right back, and get the benefit of the doubt the next time and the next. They've always got an explanation for why they were really right when they were wrong, and how their opponents who were right were only right like the stopped clock, i.e. not at all.
It isn't nostalgia for an unwashed youth that caused so many of us who've been around the block to be instinctively resistant to all the practical, serious, strategic thinking we were subjected to then and now..
And the only way for people to determine that is to look at the best rather than the average arguments for and against.
Beyond that, he's simply wrong. As Carp says, a lot of us were just cribbing from GHWB and Scowcroft. Or cribbing from MacNamara. Or Kennan. Or any of a hundred other well-known experts who came out against the war. Or, as many others have said, you could have done a quick back-of-the-envelope estimate. You really didn't need to study plans and terrain and military history; this one was a gimmee.
To be fair, one reason a lot of people might not realize this is that the media absolutely refused to give such people a fair hearing.
Jim Henley had a great post about this a while ago---how, all things being equal, it's probably appropriate to have a default assumption that war is bad and should be avoided.
Jim Henley had a great post about this a while ago---how, all things being equal, it's probably appropriate to have a default assumption that war is bad and should be avoided.
Both true, and DUH. "War is hell" is not mindless pacifism, it's a simple and obvious truth. Sometimes it may be necessary, but it's always terrible.
To be fair, one reason a lot of people might not realize this is that the media absolutely refused to give such people a fair hearing.
Well, yes. I was cutting GB a fair amount of slack by suggesting that his criticisms were true even of the average person who opposed the war. In reality, sensible opposition appeared to me to vastly outnumber the few silly people.
Even looking at the Scrowcroft argument, I still think the case can be made that the war was necessary, and not optional. GHWB did not push on to Baghdad in 1991 because the Saudis did not want to for reasons of their own, and keeping the coalition together was important. But the Saudi interests in the region are not the same American interest, although they overlap considerably.
If you will remember in 2003, we basically had our troops in pre-position in the south, and we were enforcing the"no fly zone". But the sanctions regime against Sadaam was being lobbied against by many powerful and influential parties. We got into a "use it or lose it" situation. I , for one, never thought that the war would be easy, but I sure didn't count on the wilfull negligence on the part of the Adminisrtation. The Turks not allowing the 4th ID to come in from the north has also contributed to the problem.
We got into a "use it or lose it" situation.
Lose what? Is this the same argument that we had to spend trillions on this war because continued containment would have been unworkably expensive at a cost of tens of billions?
I still think the case can be made that the war was necessary, and not optional.
What bad thing do you think would have happened if we had not gone to war? Why do you think it? Why do you think the odds of its happening were higher than the odds of the war turning out worse?
The Turks not allowing the 4th ID to come in from the north has also contributed to the problem.
I doubt that. The Turkish bordering areas are the most secure now, and the initial military phase went smoothly without the Turks.
The Turks not allowing the 4th ID to come in from the north has also contributed to the problem.
What possible difference would this have made in battling a domestic insurgency that is weakest in precisely those areas?
You guys should compete as synchronized swimmers. Then we could write demeaning posts about your asses.
GHWB did not push on to Baghdad in 1991 because the Saudis did not want to for reasons of their own, and keeping the coalition together was important
He was worried about a lot more than the Saudis:
While we hoped that popular revolt or coup would topple Saddam, neither the U.S. nor the countries of the region wished to see the breakup of the Iraqi state. We were concerned about the long-term balance of power at the head of the Gulf. Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs... We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome.
So yeah. There's your Scowcroftian case for a "necessary, and not optional" war. Not that it's necessary to rebut you even on that, because opposition to the war wasn't premised simply on the arguments of Brent Scowcroft. It was also premised on the fact that it didn't make any fucking sense. There was no connection between Iraq and al Qaeda, there was no evidence to suggest that Iraq was an actual threat to the United States, and what new evidence was being gathered (by the U.N. inspectors) indicated that Iraq was far less of a threat than previously imagined. We had every reason to believe that the war would not only be a disaster, but that it was unnecessary in the first place.
Re" 4th ID- Had the 4th Id come down from the north into Anbar province, while the Marine and the rest come from the south as they did, I believe two things may have been accomplished. First, securing the border with Syria, which was and is the resupply route of the insurgency. Second, by establishing a "presence" of a highly capable and mobile force that would secure the area.
AS for the "use it or lose it", I certainly thought that containment was seriously being eroded. I don't know that March 03 was the final "go" date, but by the summer we would have been bringing most of the troops home, and dismantling the sanctions regime.
And what bad thing do you anticipate happening as a result, and why do you think it would have happened? Would it have become impossible to, oh, redeploy the troops at some later date if it then appeared necessary?
Seems to me that if we brought the troops home, it would have been because we realized that they were serving no immediately useful purpose. Iraqi troops weren't poised to conquer the Middle East in their absence. If that appeared likely at some future date, we could have dealt with it then.
Well, what I'm saying is, yes, Scrowcroft was right, and it will be a mess, but we had to do it anyway. My mistake in suporting the war, in my opinion, was in trusting the fools who ran it, especially in the early stages of the occupation.
we had to do it anyway.
Why? What bad thing would have happened if we hadn't?
Duh, LB -- defeat for Republicans in 2004, remember?
TLL's (and anyone else's who supported the war) mistake was not "trusting the people who ran the war" but "trusting the people who advocated for the war." The people running the war did so incompetently; but the people advocating for the war did so maliciously and with the worst interests of the US at heart.
Yes, LB, making the giant assumption that had the sanctions been lifted, Sadaam would re-arm and reconstitute his WMD programs, and then fighting him again five or so years later would cost more American lives. But it is just an assumption.
71. Unfortuneatly, Fl, my ass is not what it once was.
78- I have come to the conclusion that you are right about that. I took a neo-Wilsonian view to the "regime change", and I don't think that was really the plan, or they would have implemented the State Dept. plan.
But TLL, I can grant your assumption (thus: I grant it) and then say: We had options other than go to work in 2003 or lift sanctions at that moment and for ever after. We could for instance, have neither gone to war or lifted sanctions. Or we could have not gone to war at that time, and gradually lifted sanctions contingent on regular unimpeded access for weapons inspectors, with explicit statement that we would be perfectly willing to return to use sanctions or force if the weapons inspectors report that a WMD program is being reconstituted.
I also deny that a non-nuclear WMD program is all that problematic, but it's totally a side issue.
Yes, LB, making the giant assumption that had the sanctions been lifted, Sadaam would re-arm and reconstitute his WMD programs, and then fighting him again five or so years later would cost more American lives. But it is just an assumption.
And a fairly baseless and silly one at that. What was your basis for the assumption that all of a sudden all sanctions were going to be lifted, including those on nuclear technology? (I assume you're talking about nukes. You're not such a moron as to still be fantasizing that chemical weapons were going to make Iraq an unstoppable death machine.)
Synchronicity strikes again! It's that fine analytical training given by our common alma mater.
our common alma mater
I thought your school was a pretty prestigious one.
I think we (= people broadly on my side) probably have spent too much time having these debates, when we all say the same thing at the same time.
On preview, LB is saying this also.
I will note that I meant "go to war," not "go to work." But "go to work" basically works.
Atrios wrote a good post today about the fact that war is a failure of foreign policy. It's always a failure.
Saddam wasn't Hitler, and we aren't a tiny European country with no Army. If Saddam started becoming more threatening, then we could have dealt with it. But, come on. The guy was a complete fucking loser.
Atrios wasn't right about war being a failure always, in that we can imagine a fantastic foreign policy confronted with a necessary war. (I mean to restrict this to realistically prescient foreign policies, for obvious reasons.) The point that matters (supporting a war is in no way a particularly courageous or serious thing to do) is correct and important.
Couldn't a foreign policy be both fantastic and a failure? If the greatest polevaulter in the world attempts to clear (I have no idea what's unreasonable here. 15 feet?) a 15 foot bar, and fails, that doesn't mean he did a bad job, but he still failed.
Had the 4th Id come down from the north into Anbar province, while the Marine and the rest come from the south as they did, I believe two things may have been accomplished. First, securing the border with Syria, which was and is the resupply route of the insurgency. Second, by establishing a "presence" of a highly capable and mobile force that would secure the area.
Wait, I don't get this. It's not as though our forces have been unable to get to the Anbar-Syria border; it's that we haven't had enough troops at any point to interdict border-crossings. (I'm not sure whether there is any number of troops to secure a largish, wild border entirely, but that's another question.) Also, given the fact that Iraq seems to have been one gigantic weapons-dump (and given the utter lack of seriousness with which the US tried to secure even those weapons-dumps we knew about in areas we ostensibly controlled), I don't know what difference better controlling that border would have made. And, lastly, what about all those claims that Iran is helping resupply the Shiite groups across its border?
As a sheer factual matter, I'm not sure your claims about the difference bringing the 4th ID through Turkey would have made stand up.
IIRC, there was a lot of talk about lifting the sanctions. All those dead Iraqi kids that Albright wasn't worried about. But there are none so blind as those who will not see. I grant (!) that the option was not binary- war or no war. And I also say that even a successful outcome, which I believe was possible, does not in and of itself justify the action in question.
IIRC, there was a lot of talk about lifting the sanctions. All those dead Iraqi kids that Albright wasn't worried about. But there are none so blind as those who will not see. I grant (!) that the option was not binary- war or no war.
Were they starving for lack of aluminum centrifuge tubes? If not, it might concievably have been possible to retain restrictions on importing nuclear technology into Iraq, and still cut down on sanctions likely to increase starving children.
On further examination, I can also say that my own war experience probably lent more weight to the proposal. Leaving Sadaam in place felt like unfinished business that was going to bite us in the ass.
IIRC, there was a lot of talk about lifting the sanctions. All those dead Iraqi kids that Albright wasn't worried about.
There was a lot of talk about the horrible things happening in Rwanda in 1994. Somehow we were manfully able to get our food down as 800K people were butchered with machetes. I wouldn't take our commitment to others too seriously.
Gulf War I veteran, or something else?
The single most unpleasant conversation I had about the war before it began entailed a friend's boyfriend basically screaming at me, "But what about the children!?!" over all of my arguments about international law, Saddam's non-threateningness, and the general badness of war for children. I later found out that the now-former boyfriend had had a serious cocaine habit, which went a long way toward explaining that incident.
Wow. American politics in microcosm.
Beirut, before the bombing. Called up for GWI.
w/d went to my common alma mater?
It was really pretty awful. The worst part about it was that my friend---a very good friend--stayed with him for a number of years afterwards, and it was very very hard for me to think about him with any generosity.
101: LB and I are disucssing law school.
101: Nah. He's still at mine, though. Law school, not undergrad.
90: Fair point, LB, but that puts us in "every time a student fails, it's really the teacher who has failed" territory.
Beirut, before the bombing.
Jeebus. If I remember correctly, we weren't there that long before the bombing. Glad you weren't there, though that seems inappopriate, given those who were.
73: Having Turkish cooperation would have made securing the Syrian border quicker, but three years later we're still not able to secure it. I rather doubt that that kind of securing can be done.
It's not like the Iraqis were unarmed when the war began. I'm sure they're getting outside supplies now, but I don't think they needed them at the beginning.
105: Sure, and it shouldn't necessarily be read as a judgment on the leaders presiding over the failure. Just that war is never going to be reasonably viewable as a desirable outcome.
90, 105, 109 --
Could the Iraq war failure be viewed as a failure of American self-esteem? We could have done it if we had only believed in ourselves!
109: or the policy itself. My point originally was just that it's possible for a war to be made necessary for a state through no failure on the part of that state. Ok, I grant your pole-vaulting point: there the vaulter's unsuccessful attempt seems like a non-blameworthy failure, but it does so because there's intent behind the action. Madmen seize control of Canada! We must defend ourselves from this unprecedented Canadian attack! It would be odd to say that the US policy toward Canada failed. One explanation might involve the unforeseeability of the war and corresponding absence of an aim of continued peaceful coexistence.
Even I have become bored with this, since nothing depends on it.
110: This is the same as the argument between old-timey baseball men and sabermetricians, isn't it? Never mind the statistics, it's about team chemistry!
Just that war is never going to be reasonably viewable as a desirable outcome.
And a pony?
"War is always a policy failure", to me, implies that there was a chance of success. To return to your analogy, I wouldn't call a pole-vaulter a failure just because he missed a 50' jump. Now, maybe you believe that there are no 50' jumps, but I'm not so sure about that.
Eh, it's a difference of word usage. I'd still say "he failed to vault the 50' bar," even if no other outcome were plausible. But I certainly recognize that some real world situations are 50' bars.
Atrios' idea that war is always a failure probably is a D/R divider. A substantial proportion of Rs (not just neocons) believe in the positive, nondefensive application of military force, and a very large proportion believe that war is inevitable, whether because it's ordained by God or for more this-worldly reasons, and that making sure you win is the only possible choice.
Right, but do you concede that, if, say, you were addressing an audience and you said, "war is a failure of policy, even if no better solution was available" that there would be confused looks? And so, if that's what Atrios meant, I don't really have any sympathy for him if he's misunderstood by millions of screaming righties claiming it as yet more evidence that all liberals are unreasonable pacifists. I'm trying to be pragmatic about this. These people vote, so it's in our interest to not make Dems look completely irrational.
A substantial proportion of Rs (not just neocons) believe in the positive, nondefensive application of military force
Don't liberals generally believe this, too, but in different contexts? i.e. darfur, rwanda, east timor
Hrm. It doesn't sound completely irrational to me, but then I'm a Dem as described by Emerson in 116. All I read it as saying is that war is never desirable, and when you find yourself at war, it's because you didn't figure out a better way to get out of the situation.
I'm not particularly happy with exhortations not to make points in ways that can be interpreted as irrational. Sure, don't make it easy, but anything can be misinterpreted as irrational. If we get too nervous about being misunderstood, we won't say anything at all.
118. Just poking a hornet's nest here, but Michael are you saying that use of force is only justified where you have no national interest, only a humanitarian one?
118: I'd spin all of those as 'defense of others'.
I would like to extend special gratitude for the fact that 115 says "word usage" instead of "semantics".
a very large proportion believe that war is inevitable, whether because it's ordained by God
Including the top general in the United States, apparently.
The top US general defended the leadership of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying it is inspired by God.
"He leads in a way that the good Lord tells him is best for our country," said Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Good to know that full blown psychotic delusions have made their way all the way to the Joint Chiefs.
Between "word usage" and "semantics" it's all semantics.
Does "semantics", like "seminary" and "seminal", have its origin in "semen"? Maybe not, and I can't see how that "a" would have gotten in there, but let's, just for the moment, close our eyes and pretend.
127: I would say you're being facetious, if "facetious" had its origin in "feces".
"semantic" and "semiotic" are from Greek, "semen" from Latin.
131: It's all one in the original Indo-European, isn't it?
There were only two words in PIE, denoting semen and shit.
(But maybe Teo will tell us.)
If only Fafblog! were still around, we might get Friday PIE-blogging. Say: anyone for Boticelli? (!)
and when you find yourself at war, it's because you didn't figure out a better way to get out of the situation.
Actually, this is what I'm objecting to, since I think there might be cases where no better ways were available. Again, I agree with the substantive point Atrios is making, but (a) quibble about the accuracy of his formulation-- trivial; and (b) think that "war means you failed" is a bad formulation for political reasons (it prompts unnecessary eye-rolling). The only reason I care about this at all is that the underlying point-- it's terrible that, for many people, it is politically expedient to call for an aggressive foreign policy that will cost many lives, and politically disadvantageous to do the hard work that is more likely to solve problems. It's like the difference between being genuinely serious about terrorism and berating others for not being serious about terrorism:
I'm not particularly happy with exhortations not to make points in ways that can be interpreted as irrational.
That's not quite my exhortation. This is a well-known, and infinitley annoying, misinterpretation. It's also, to my perception, a significantly important one. And, like I said, these people vote. I'm not about to propose a general rule about guarding against misinterpretation, but, in this instance, I think it's prudent.
I think TLL's position is actually coherent and reasonable. I disagree with it, as I would have done at the time, on two grounds: first, it seemed clear to me that there was no real plan for what to do if the war didn't go easily, or what to do after Saddam was gone; and second, because not trusting ourselves to maintain the interest to keep the sanctions going is a big part of why I didn't believe we'd be able to maintain the interest to rebuild a country.
Here's the root for the "seed" words; American Heritage doesn't give an etymology for the "meaning" words further back than Greek σημα, which implies that it cannot be plausibly connected to any IE root. CÆ is thus correct.
Yay, I'm correct! Look at me everybody, this is what a correct person looks like!
138: It's kind of like an ugly divorce: both parties get hurt, and there's always a less damaging way of resolving things if both parties are willing to work at it in good faith. And like ugly divorces, people on the verge of starting a war can spend too much time worrying about not letting the other side get away with something and not enough worrying about whether preventing that is worth what it's going to cost. There are times when the other side's unreasonableness leaves no decent alternative to fighting, but we ought to be very slow to conclude that we're in one of those situations.
These people vote
If "these people" are Atrios readers, then yeah, they vote, and they vote Democratic, so what's the worry?
I dunno, mrh, bloggers quote each other an awful lot.
Yeah, and I'm not defending it as the strongest possible rhetoric -- Atrios could probably have said it better. It just didn't sound obviously confusing or wrong to me. But an alternative formulation could easily have worked much better.