Iraq...
Oh really?
Posted on 02/08/2006 10:49:05 AM PST by Tolik
Why did the successful war in Iraq to replace Saddam Hussein with a democracy lose the majority support of the American public? Despite steady U.S. military progress against jihadists, and the bold endorsement of peaceful self-rule by 11 million Iraqis, public approval was slowly eroded by an accumulation of hits...
...Perhaps most of all, public ambivalence about the Iraq war is due to generalized ignorance of military history. Without guidance from the past, too many people are shepherded through the experience of war by nothing deeper than the rollercoaster emotions whipped up by 24-hour news coverage of explosions and suicide bombings...
...there has been no Darwinian evolution of human nature in the very short span of civilization. The old threats of passion remain constant and predictable. Nor has the use of sophisticated technology and computers altered either the chemistry or hard-wiring of our brains. Rather than denying the human propensity for violence, it is far wiser to accept it and then defend the rules of civilization that alone can contain and ameliorate it.
Modern life in Western countries has also become so privileged and protected that it is hard to convince affluent suburbanites that shooting and bombing your way to power remains a norm in much of the world. Wealthy moderns too often imagine that issues of governance, religion, and tribal affiliation are solved through talk shows, lawsuits, or “60 Minutes” reports. Mostly, though, these conflicts abroad continue to be settled through violence.
...Our enemies — who cling to history far more tightly than most Americans — know this. And because ...warrior fanatics understand our recent past, and their own distant one, better than we do, they will continue to fight in places, and with methods, that challenge our often unhistorical sense of the civilized self.
(Excerpt) Read more at victorhanson.com ...
Politically, the Iraq theater also affords these benefits:
1. Strategic position -- it flanks both Iran and Syria.
2. Strategic influence -- Iraq also afforded a base in the ME that allowed us to depart Saudi Arabia, yet remain in the neighborhood and influence it with our seriousness of purpose.
3. Aside from Turkey, the Iraqi population is perhaps the most secular in the Middle East and may also be the most educated (faint praise). Historically, the country has had some experience with self-government and, of any candidate, is probably the best-equipped to become a functioning democracy.
Accordingly, if you wanted a test market for the WOT political strategy, Iraq would be it.
Bingo!
For pre-war confirmation of this strategy, see the Hindustani Times from December 30, 2002:
Were that American newspapers were as intelligently written and edited as those in India.
Modern life in Western countries has also become so privileged and protected that it is hard to convince affluent suburbanites that shooting and bombing your way to power remains a norm in much of the world. Wealthy moderns too often imagine that issues of governance, religion, and tribal affiliation are solved through talk shows, lawsuits, or “60 Minutes” reports.I absolutely concur with this statement.
Good article, thanks.
Well, if anybody in Iraq was going to piss and moan about the cartoons, I would expect it to be Mookie.
But I haven't seen any reports of him so much as stamping his foot. Besides which, Mookie probably has less influence on Iraqi affairs than the Reverend Al has on the U.S.
Actually, my source was Ann Coulter. Shouldn't have taken her word for it, I guess.
But you must admit, as described, the demonstrations in Iraq seem rather tepid in comparison with others. Like, maybe they really were "spontaneous" -- instead of organized by the indigenous totalitarian regime.
Good ol' Mookie. Always good for an outrage...
You are right about this, to a certain extent. But there is a serious danger to this -- from the standpoint of public morale and public support. If the statement "No WMDs found" is correct, then there are only two logical conclusions for us to reach: 1) they never existed in the first place, or 2) they have somehow been hidden from us. Item #1 would be an admission of rank incompetence or deliberate deception on the part of every person or organization that formally stated these WMDs existed, while Item #2 would be an admission on the part of the U.S. that the war has been an utter failure (i.e., if the purpose of the war was to eliminate another country's WMD capabilities and these capabilities remain intact outside our control, then we've botched the job).
IOW, you don't believe establishment of democracy is an effective method of dealing with aggressive nations.
No, I don't. And -- despite their occasional proclamations to the contrary -- neither does anyone in the Bush administration, or anyone else in Washington, for that matter.
98% of the American public has no clue who Richard Pearle is. Just because he is a Paleocon bete noire does not mean anyone else cares.
You're probably right about that, though the Bush administration clearly thought he was enough of a political liability and a colossal embarrassment that they felt a need to throw him out on his @ss before the start of the 2004 campaign.
IOW, the wogs can't understand what we enlightened people can. As if Japan had a history of respect for personal liberty, and we are delusional to think they could ever develop one.
Japan is a bad example to use in this context. Japan was so utterly devastated by the end of World War II that their government and political culture was going to become whatever the U.S. said it would be -- and there wasn't a damn thing they could do about it. If Harry Truman thought it would be a good idea to name Ronald McDonald the emperor of Japan for life, then Ronald McDonald would be Japan's head of state to this day.
Turkey and India may not be "western" nations, but they have had extensive exposure to Western ideas over the centuries. India was a British colony until 50 years ago, for heaven's sake.
So violent pathological secular dictators who have sworn to destroy us are good, but violent pathological religious Muslims who have sworn to destroy us are bad? And we should therefore stop supporting the fighting of said violent pathological religious Muslims, and abandon an infant democracy to them?
I have no problem with supporting "infant democratic" movements in these places, if it's in our best interests to do this. But supporting these movements and invading a country are two completely different things. If a stable democratic government were truly feasible in Iraq, then the U.S. could have accomplished the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist government and the establishment of a democratic government simply by supplying the people of Iraq with several million AK-47s and a couple of hundred million rounds of ammunition.
Amen, brother. Repeat this point far and wide.
A "war on terror" is likely to be about as successful as all the other "wars" this country has fought against inanimate objects, ideas, and elements of the human condition ("war on poverty," "war on drugs," etc.).
Accordingly, if you wanted a test market for the WOT a Middle Eastern nation-building political strategy, Iraq would be it.
LOL!
I have said for a long time that 9/11 simply provided this administration the public support it needed to do something it had every intention of doing anyway.
No, he didn't. He posted an interesting message that might make sense to himself, to you, and to any number of other people. He might even be right about it, too. But I have asked him at least twice on this thread to provide us with any supporting evidence that "the case for war in Iraq" he described was ever the goal of the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. State Department, or any other branch of the U.S. government. Until he does this, his post has all the fascinating intrigue of -- and no more credibility than -- a Tom Clancy novel.
I know you have. And I couldn't agree less.
We'll probably never know, for sure, since there is really no way of knowing. Thus, it's unlikely we'll ever agree on the subject.
Doesn't mean we can't continue to argue the point, though...
That is certainly the boilerplate spin put on the situation by the anti-war crowd, but, as usual, the spin is shallow and superficial to the facts it engages and the facts it glosses over.
Yes, ONE of the purposes of the war was to eliminate Saddam's control over WMDs. But there were myriad other valid casus belli, both pre and post 9/11. Among them were: 1) repeated cease fire violations; 2) financial support, asylum and training for terrorists; 3) known stockpiles of poison gas unaccounted for; 5) deliberate circumvention of inspections; 6) acquisition of technical means for nuclear development, biowar development and continued chemical development; 7) development of delivery systems for both conventional and WMDs; 8) continued pograms against non-baathist ethnic groups (Kurds and swamp Arabs); 9) reconstitution of military forces; 10) stockpiling of huge amounts of conventional weaponry.
Besides the actual casus belli, there were also myriad practical reasons for attacking Iraq. Among them were: 1) eliminating a cancer in the general ME; 2) establishing a strategic central position that puts the geographic keystone of the ME in friendly hands; 3) finished the job that was erroneously left undone in GW I; 4) eliminated the need for bases in Saudi Arabia, which was one of the prime recruiting points for Al Queda; 6) terrain favored rapid military advances, as opposed to mountainous Afghanistan or Iran; 7) native population was relatively secularized and non-homogeneous, with large pluralities already opposed to the Baathists; 8) we had extensive knowledge of the military terrain from GW I; 9) we believed our former coalition partners would support the effort.
It was this last reason that failed in the execution. The Iraq campaign was delayed far too long by France and co., which I believe to be directly responsible for the transfer and concealment of WMD assets. The 11th hour withdrawal of Turkey as a launching pad for the northern flank also allowed the escape of many of those former Baathists we are now fighting as one prong of the "insurgency".
Do a Google search on a term like "Wolfowitz + Osama bin Laden" or "Perle + al-Qaeda." You'll be shocked at how few matched you get for articles/links that pre-date 9/11.
That objective is to disarm and dismantle the Baathist party.
"Nation building" is not what the USA is doing there.
Pres. Bush has given the Iraqis an opportunity for a democracy, not a guarantee.
If Iraqis cannot or will not manage that does not diminish the Presidents cause which is still to disarm and dismantle the Baathist Party.
Excuse me but, Hirohito DID continue as Emperor of Japan, despite the A-bomb, and Japan HAD BEEN a democracy (albeit a skewed one) prior to the eruption of the Second World War.
The Japanese people routinely elected more militant governments between 1904 and 1945 because they had learned that war simply paid. Or at least it paid until you ran up against an emeny capable of fighting back (unlike China and Manchuria) like the United States and Russia.
"Peace" movements and candidates in the between war years were routinely assassinated and the perpetrators "forgiven their sins" because, at heart, they were to be considered "patriots". While there were many Japanese committed to peaceful co-existance, there were far more who saw war as just another requirement of national greatness. After all, Japan was almost constantly at war between 1905 and 1940, and had always been triumphant. There was every reason to expect that they would be so again. So, the election of Tojo (yes, he was elected, believe it or not), and the expansion of the war by the attack on Pearl Harbor, was greeted with great joy by the majority of Japanese.
The problem with Japanese democracy then, and the same problem will manifest itself in Iraq, is that it will take a while to divorce the concept (individual freedom with attendant responsibilities) from the culture (the individual is nothing, honor is everything).
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