A Price Too High (Bob Herbert surrenders to the terrorists)

The New York Times ^ | 08/21/03 | BOB HERBERT

[Pokey78]

How long is it going to take for us to recognize that the war we so foolishly started in Iraq is a fiasco — tragic, deeply dehumanizing and ultimately unwinnable? How much time and how much money and how many wasted lives is it going to take?

At the United Nations yesterday, grieving diplomats spoke bitterly, but not for attribution, about the U.S.-led invasion and occupation. They said it has not only resulted in the violent deaths of close and highly respected colleagues, but has also galvanized the most radical elements of Islam.

"This is a dream for the jihad," said one high-ranking U.N. official. "The resistance will only grow. The American occupation is now the focal point, drawing people from all over Islam into an eye-to-eye confrontation with the hated Americans.

"It is very propitious for the terrorists," he said. "The U.S. is now on the soil of an Arab country, a Muslim country, where the terrorists have all the advantages. They are fighting in a terrain which they know and the U.S. does not know, with cultural images the U.S. does not understand, and with a language the American soldiers do not speak. The troops can't even read the street signs."

The American people still do not have a clear understanding of why we are in Iraq. And the troops don't have a clear understanding of their mission. We're fighting a guerrilla war, which the bright lights at the Pentagon never saw coming, with conventional forces.

Under these circumstances, in which the enemy might be anybody, anywhere, tragedies like the killing of Mazen Dana are all but inevitable. Mr. Dana was the veteran Reuters cameraman who was blown away by jittery U.S. troops on Sunday. The troops apparently thought his video camera was a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

The mind plays tricks on you when you're in great danger. A couple of weeks ago, in an apparent case of mistaken identity, U.S. soldiers killed two members of the Iraqi police. And a number of innocent Iraqi civilians, including children, have been killed by American troops.

The carnage from riots, ambushes, firefights, suicide bombings, acts of sabotage, friendly fire incidents and other deadly encounters is growing. And so is the hostility toward U.S. troops and Americans in general.

We are paying a terribly high price — for what?

One of the many reasons Vietnam spiraled out of control was the fact that America's top political leaders never clearly defined the mission there, and were never straight with the public about what they were doing. Domestic political considerations led Kennedy, then Johnson, then Nixon to conceal the truth about a policy that was bankrupt from the beginning. They even concealed how much the war was costing.

Sound familiar?

Now we're lodged in Iraq, in the midst of the most volatile region of the world, and the illusion of a quick victory followed by grateful Iraqis' welcoming us with open arms has vanished. Instead of democracy blossoming in the desert, we have the reality of continuing bloodshed and heightened terror — the payoff of a policy spun from fantasies and lies.

Senator John McCain and others are saying the answer is more troops, an escalation. If you want more American blood shed, that's the way to go. We sent troops to Vietnam by the hundreds of thousands. There were never enough.

Beefing up the American occupation is not the answer to the problem. The American occupation is the problem. The occupation is perceived by ordinary Iraqis as a confrontation and a humiliation, and by terrorists and other bad actors as an opportunity to be gleefully exploited.

The U.S. cannot bully its way to victory in Iraq. It needs allies, and it needs a plan. As quickly as possible, we should turn the country over to a genuine international coalition, headed by the U.N. and supported in good faith by the U.S.

The idea would be to mount a massive international effort to secure Iraq, develop a legitimate sovereign government and work cooperatively with the Iraqi people to rebuild the nation.

If this does not happen, disaster will loom because the United States cannot secure and rebuild Iraq on its own.

A U.N. aide told me: "The United States is the No. 1 enemy of the Muslim world, and right now it's sitting on the terrorists' doorstep. It needs help. It needs friends."  

[Pokey78]

Strange. He doesn't look French.

[Shermy]

He sounds like he's on the French payroll. My, how fast they act off a tragedy to assert their money interests.

[nothingnew]

GFY herbert........that's all I have to say....right now.

FMCDH

[Finalapproach29er]

During the slavery era, the Arabs used to castrate the black slaves the took to Arab world. I wonder what Bob thinks of his Muslim "friends"?

[randog]

How long is it going to take for us to recognize that the war we so foolishly started in Iraq is a fiasco — tragic, deeply dehumanizing and ultimately unwinnable? How much time and how much money and how many wasted lives is it going to take?

Something tells me that this guy was on the "give the inspectors more time--12 years is not long enough" bandwagon.

[goodnesswins]

"The U.S. cannot bully its way to victory in Iraq. It needs allies, and it needs a plan. As quickly as possible, we should turn the country over to a genuine international coalition, headed by the U.N. and supported in good faith by the U.S."

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.....this is the ONION, right....c'mon....it has to be.....we offered the UN Protection before the blast, and this is the agency this idiot says we need to have running the show.....BAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[GOP_Proud]

< The American people still do not have a clear understanding of why we are in Iraq. >

Excuse me? I'm "American people" and I understand.

Oh. I get it. HE doesn't understand and his logic leads him to the conclusion that "the American people" do not understand. Yeah, and I don't know how to tie my shoes either.

I despise arrogance. Does it show?

[goldstategop]

Bob Herbert like other liberals opposed the war from Day One. He would have us cut and run from Iraq just like the unnamed anti-American anonymous UN officials he takes such pains to quote, from the Mogadishu of the 21st Century and embolden the terrorists to hit our shores will another 9-11 all over again. This guy is terminally stupid. There's no more place to run. And by not finishing our mission of bringing representative institutions to Iraq and reconstructing the country, we'll all but guarantee the stage for another Middle East War. The truth of the matter is we've lost to date fewer troops in Iraq than we do at home on the streets in a typical month. I guess Herbert is so consumed by hatred of President Bush that he thinks we're paying a "price too high" to keep this country safe. This is the cowardice we've come to encounter from the party of JFK, which assured us in the 60s we would pay ANY price to assure the success and the survival of liberty. Liberals have certainly changed with the times and now with the likes of Herbert, they are squarely on the side of America's enemies.

[irv]

It's hard to know where to begin with this amazing compilation of gratuitous assertions, baseless conclusions and outright lies. But let's try starting with this:

A U.N. aide told me:

Who cares what some unnamed U.N. aide says? If the U.N. had any credibility on Iraq, Saddam would have been booted from power 12 years (or more) ago.

[Bullish]

We should just anihalate them all and be done with it.

Oh, and the radical muslimes too.

[Stallone]

The left-wing Socialists are complicit with the Islamoscum.

If you ever meet an Osama on the road - kill it.

NEVER NEGOTIATE WITH EVIL - KILL IT.

[Welsh Rabbit]

I think you can safely bet the house on that assumption.

[exit82]

Mr. Herbert is wrong on so many counts.

First, the price that was too high to pay was paid by us on 9/11/01. It is a price which the Jihadis have not even begun to be paid back for.

Second, the United States is fighting resistance is a relatively small area of Iraq that was dominated by those booted out of power. There is no suprise to this resistance, except in the minds of leftist columnists. The rest of Iraq seems to welcome us with open arms. These are the folks, who love us, who were repressed by Saddam and the Baath party.

Third, to leave now is to embolden the Wahabbist terror masters to strike again. This is the lesson of Beirut, Mogadishu, The USS Cole. We have been hit. We must utterly destroy the enemy. Some innocents will be killed, but that is because of the cowardly nature of the way the Jihadi terrorist choose to fight, like the cowardly dogs that they are.

Fourth, we don't need friends to win this war. We can win it alone. We have too win it--there is no other choice, notwithstanding the utterly defeatist whining of this NY Times pantload. We have seen that, other than Britain and Australia and some Eastern European states, we have NO friends in the world. Fine with me. Just stay out of our way while we once again get the job done. But don't be mistaken--we're doing the job to protect us, not the rest of the world's and UN's sorry posteriors.

Fifth, it is getting amazingly transparent that the NY Times columnists are a bunch of fifth columnists in our midst. This whackjob mentions Vietnam like he knows what he is actually talking about. We didn't win in Vietnam because our troops were not allowed to win. And a Democratic Congress betrayed the South Vietnamese in 1974-1975, thus making every one of the 58,000 lives of American GI's killed there count for nothing, and enslaving millions and resulting in the murder of millions in Cambodia,Laos, and South Vietnam.

People like Bob Herbert need to be ostracized--they are traitors to America. To defend America and to make her victorious, Bob, THE PRICE IS NEVER TOO HIGH.

[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

Poor Bob, he has a funny view of America due to getting his prescription glasses from the UN/league of tyrants.

[GodfearingTexan]

maybe this wouldve been happier if we wouldve abided by muslim norms and just lined up every military-aged man in every town and shot them as we moved across the country towards baghdad. then maybe he'd be glad we're operating with a full understanding of muslim custom.

pfffttt!!!! this guys a dweeb.

[BerniesFriend]

A U.N. aide told me:

bob herbert..new york times

wow..two lies in two sentences...

[mikegi]

I watched part of the movie about the Nuremburg Nazi trials the other day ("Judgment at Nuremburg"). What I found interesting was the small talk about our occupation of Germany after the war. People told the prosecutor (Richard Widmark) how he was not very popular for what he was doing - an implied threat. Others said that we shouldn't be there, etc. Widmark replied that, of course, some Germans were very angry because they were the ones we were going after. We are going to clean out the Nazis and their supporters.

Anyway, it gave me an interesting perspective on the Iraq occupation. There were plenty of weak-kneed people in the press back then, too. Fortunately, we stuck it out and prevented a third rise of the German war machine.

[Richard Axtell]

How long is it going to take for us to recognize that the war we so foolishly started in Iraq is a fiasco — tragic, deeply dehumanizing and ultimately unwinnable?"

How long is it going to take for you to recognize that the war against our country was started long ago- and the fiasco of the Clinton foreign policy failures in this terrorist war are what are most tragic?

How long is ti going to take for you pathetic craven cowards to grow up and start acting like men? Never, I would presume, for this particular author, a sorry excuse for an American.

How long will we remember all this whining and cowardly twaddle? I am beginning to forget it already.

[okie01]

"Bob Herbert like other liberals opposed the war from Day One. He would have us cut and run from Iraq just like the unnamed anti-American anonymous UN officials he takes such pains to quote..."

Don't I recall Bob Herbert leading the cheers in December, 1998 -- back when Bubba The Bellicose vowed to wipe out Saddam...???

Of course, Bob and his buddies also knew that Bubba was jes' kiddin'...

[Hugin]

The American occupation is the problem. The occupation is perceived by ordinary Iraqis as a confrontation and a humiliation, and by terrorists and other bad actors as an opportunity to be gleefully exploited.

According to soldiers in Iraq the Iraqis are mainly concerned that the US will bug out allowing the Baathists to take back control. Rather than wanting us gone, they want more US troops involved in keeping order. As for the Jihadis, better to have them come at our troops in Iraq rather than having to hunt them down all over the Arab world or worse yet attack us here.