"A War We Just Might Win"

Great Debates
261

From The Examiner:

So it looks like militarily, the surge is really working quite well. Politically, the central leadership still sucks, and a military victory will be for naught if the political situation doesn’t change. However, Petraeus’s strategy involves changing the political situation from the bottom up - he doesn’t trust the leaders in Iraq, so he’s trying to change the country tribe-by-tribe. Get the rank-and-file and the citizenry on the side of peace and stability, and pull the legs out from under the leaders. That too seems like a promising avenue as opinion is shifting rapidly in Iraq within the population in favor of accomodation and reconciliation. It might not work, and might even be a longshot, but clearly there’s a plan, and early signs are that it’s working.

So… Is anyone willing to reconsider their position, and at least give the military a chance? Morale is high, casualties are down, civilian casualties are down, and ever observer that’s been to the country, including Democrats Durbin and Casey who just returned, admit that the surge is having a real and positive effect. The surge is also seriously damaging al-Qaida by not just killing them in large numbers, but by discrediting them within the Iraqi population. al-Qaida has taken a huge PR hit throughout the middle east in the last year, and their support in the middle east is shrinking dramatically (for example, confidence in Osama Bin Laden is down to 20% in Jordan, from 56% in 2003 according to Pew).

Why in the world would anyone want to hand al-Qaida a victory at this point and walk away from Iraq when there are strong signs of hope?

262

Of course we are winning the military battles. We have an amazing army who would defeat anyone in a face to face confrontation. That is not the point. The entire purpose of the surge was to make room for poliltical progress in Iraq. In the 8 months that this surge has been going on, Iraq has made no political progress. In fact, with the Sadr contingent leaving, you could argue that the country has moved backward.

Recently in Slate Phillip Carter wrote

"Today, in Iraq, we face a similar conundrum. Our vaunted military has won every battle against insurgents and militias—from the march up to the “thunder runs” that took Baghdad; the assaults on Fallujah to the battles for Sadr City. And yet we still find ourselves stuck in the sands of Mesopotamia. In a New York Times op-ed published Monday, Brookings Institution scholars Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack argue that “[w]e are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms.” They go on to describe the myriad ways the surge is succeeding on the security front.

But in emphasizing this aspect of current operations, they downplay the more critical questions relating to political progress and the ability of Iraq’s national government to actually govern. Security is not an end in itself. It is just one component, albeit an important one, of a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy. Unless it is paired with a successful political strategy that consolidates military gains and translates increased security into support from the Iraqi people, these security improvements will, over time, be irrelevant."

And my favorite part…

“Truth is elusive in Iraq; it always remains just out of focus. In Iraq you can find evidence on the ground to support just about any conclusion you choose; most visitors arrive, see what they want to see, and go home believing even more strongly in the positions they held before they landed in Iraq. It takes months—perhaps even years—to gain the depth and perspective on Iraq necessary to develop a reasonably objective and balanced understanding of events there. Neither O’Hanlon and Pollack nor conservative scholars like Fred Kagan, the intellectual architect of the current surge, spend nearly enough time in Iraq to understand its shifting, uncertain realities.”

This surge is beating Al Quaida in Iraq, but the yare not the problem. The problem continues to be the sectarian violence, and that will continue if we are there or not.

Keeping our forces there is simply running out the clock until the next administration takes over.

263

But Sam, AFAICT there has been little or no improvement on the political side. And without that, regardless of how successful our military is in this surge its not going to make a difference. If the Iraqi’s can’t get their shit together politically its all going to eventually fall apart.

-XT

264

How very interesting! Not more than a minute ago, I was reading ThinkProgress for my hourly dose of America-hating defeatism, and they were on about how the right wing was spinning Sen Durbin’s remarks, picking a line they found agreeable and ignoring the rest. To witless:

http://thinkprogress.org/

And not but scant seconds later, here is our own Sam, trumpeting the wonderful news and eagerly awaiting our recantations!

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Iraq Roadside Bomb Attacks Hit All-Time High

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Why the Surge Has Failed

A surge of phony spin on Iraq

Iraq’s hall of mirrors
I hate to put a damper on Sam’s increased optimism – even if his OP was proven to be nothing but propaganda – but just by clicking on a few of the above links, it’s easy to see how his latest post is just that: more of the same.

Oh well. Some things never change.

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Wait… You draw this conclusion because of quotes from an article with an unattributed byline about what Petraeus told Alan Colmes (AKA “Hannity’s bitch”)? Or because “Even as vocal a war critic as” Dick Durbin is quoted as having uttered three words (without any context given)?

Is this the kind of critical thinking we are told we should be engaging in here? There is not one hard fact in that whole bit, and there is again, just as in your OP, some sense that if you can put a label on someone as a “vocal war critic” (regardless of the truth of the matter), then a contrary conclusion from that “vocal war critic” is essentially a fact.

I think we should wait six months to see if this pans out like you predict, because clearly you’ve put a lot of serious critical thought into it.

If you want to read columnists to get information about the war, why not read someone like Juan Cole, who a) speaks from a position of authority on the topic; b) makes arguments based on objective facts; and c) has been correct in his prior estimations and evaluations on the topic.

He had a good piece recently commenting on folks like you and those you are promoting here: “A surge of phony spin on Iraq”. See how it is done? See how it differs from pointing to “a vocal war critic” as evidence? Facts. They’re not just for breakfast anymore.

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Simul-post: Great minds think alike. Or should that be: “all lefties are America-hating scum”?

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Already linked Cole’s piece, Hentor. Along with other reality-based articles.

Doubt any will make a dent in Sam’s unwavering optimism. Do you?

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Clearly just evidence of groupthink from the Usual Suspects. Or as xtisme and tomndebb would have it, those who just look for opinion pieces that support their side of it without any real interest in the facts of the matter.

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You will be assimilated.

271

Yep. That’s us alright. Sheep I tell you, sheep!

Bahbahabahabah!

There. I fell all better now.

272

On the basis of an op-ed??

Don’t be absurd.

Aren’t you kinda grasping at straws here? You started this thread on the basis of one op-ed, and now you’ve got another.

No, we are not changing our minds on the basis of a couple of op-eds.

Causualties have been down because it’s summertime in Iraq, when even the insurgents take a bit of a siesta. But last month was the deadliest July of the war for U.S. and coalition troops despite that, and even then, coalition fatalities were higher in July than they were in January, February, or March.

That observers like Durbin and Casey are impressed doesn’t mean much: how can a U.S. Senator really see that much on a visit to Iraq?

Damned if I know what one thing has to do with another. AFAICT, it’s never been demonstrated that AQI has more than incidental connections to the real McCoy over in Waziristan.

I se these as opposites: as long as we’re bogged down in Iraq, our chances of beating al-Qaeda are minimal. Hell, Bush even disbanded the bin Laden unit last year.

I’m working my way through Anthony Cordesman’s analysis, “The Tenuous Case for Strategic Patience in Iraq: A Trip Report.” (The linked page is a synopsis; click “Download PDF” to get the full report.) Cordesman, whose judgment I am willing to give some weight to, was on the same trip as Pollack and O’Hanlon, but his view of things is decidedly more pessimistic.

I’ll tell you what I think when I’m done reading his report.

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You do your position no good when you invent things for me to have said just so you can take personal swipes at me.

Your remark does not even make sense in the context of anything I have said in this thread or regarding the war, in general. If you’ve got nothing to contribute but false claims about other posters, type them up, then delete them before you hit Submit.

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tomndebb, I was simply referring to this statement by xtisme:

You were the one who chose to insinuate yourself into the argument in defense of that particular post by xtisme. I specifically asked you to clarify your position on the issue of this statement of his here. You chose not to, which is certainly your right. However, you have no position to claim now that I am simply making up assertions wholecloth.

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Sure I can. The specirfic point that xtisme addressed was the explicit judgment of the results of the Surge. That you attempted to expand that to mean that he had to defend the whole war was your rhetorical problem. I was simply trying to keep the thread from getting snarled up by claims made for other posters which had not been actually expressed. You then decided to claim that I was saying the same thing as xtisme, which makes no sense, as I had made no comments regarding the beliefs of other posters, simply asking that people not conflate separate arguments.
(I also made no claim that “your presence” was derailing the thread, so get off your cross, we need the wood. I noted that with the current mix of posters in the thread, (that would include nearly all the posters plus their interactions, not any individual poster), my efforts to keep it on track were probably going to be futile, but that I was making the attempt, anyway. Had I thought that “your presence” was going to be a problem, I’d have adddressed the issue directly and differently.)

I figured that you demanding that I answer for xtisme (as silly as that was) was simply a typo or the product of sleep loss and let it pass. Let me repeat, I did not “speak for xtisme.” I identified the actual point of his post to which you responded as though you had not read it. As to “claims about what the scope of his observations ,” I simply noted what he had posted, not what you attributed to him that he had not said. Sticking to addressing other poster’s words instead of attributing your beliefs for them is exactly what I was asking you to do–the point you have chosen to ignore in this exchange, as well.

To come back, now, and to pretend that I have expressed an opinion that you can find nowhere in my postings is merely dishonest. Go back to page 2 and see what I actually said about the OP’s link.

I made no comments about other posters other than the general one that the current crew did not seem to be able to stick to a topic without bringing in all sorts of earleir baggage. If you had a problem with xtisme’s characterizations, the person to address was xtisme.

276

Y’know, re-reading page 2, I notice that I did not even defend xtisme’s position, there. I merely asked that posters arguing with him address his statmenets, not their beliefs. To say that my opinions are the same as those of xtisme requires a truly incredible amount of psychological projection combined with a stunning lack of reading comprehension.

277

This is not at all an accurate assessment of my response to him. My focus, which is evident if you read what I wrote, was about how one comes by the information they use to evaluate the progress on the war, which was entirely the topic resulting from the OP. You can see this in my pointing him towards sources of facts and data about Iraq, my questioning of why he would choose to wait for Petraeus’ evaluation, and my expression of frustration that he would disparage critics of the war for choosing biased sources of information while awaiting the word of the Bush administration.

The suggestion that I demanded that he “defend the whole war” is in fact itself a bullshit invention of wholecloth origins.

The fact that YOU choose to selectively restrict your interpretation of his point to something more refined and specific is your doing, not his. I’ll buy that you simply wanted to gloss over the more jagged edges of his post in favor of restating a more specific and defensible position, but that is in part your choice to put words into (and take some out of) his mouth.

Actually, you selectively boiled his post down to the element you liked, ignored the rest, and then called me out for employing a strawman (or scarecrow) argument.

I do admit that it was disingenuous of me to employ a “silence as assent” interpretation of your lack of a response.

I do believe that is what I did before you came in to offer your interpretations of what xtisme said and what my response to him was.

Suffice it to say that I withdraw my statement above that you and he share the same opinion of the sources of information used by people who criticize the war, and apologize for doing so.

ETA:

Well, despite this, I will let my apology for the disingenuous “silence as assent” attitude on my part stand.

As to reading comprehension, I would again point out that it apparently goes both ways, and I myself can only wonder at the psychological origins for your specifically insinuating yourself into that particuar exchange.

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So, in the end, everyone can blame the Iraqis for the failure. Yay!

-Joe

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There are lessons to be learned from the Iraqi fiasco.

Pollock failed to bulletproof his analysis in 2002. He didn’t ask himself, Under what scenario might I be wrong? Such an exercise would have permitted him to wonder whether intrusive inspections (as conducted by the vindicated Hans Blik) could establish a more secure casus belli or even prevent an unnecessary war.

Sam Stone, I would submit, spends too much time reading sources that he finds agreeable, without giving due consideration to their track record.

This is spin. What happened (according to Anthony H. Cordesman) is the US has received a little bit of good luck in Iraq (finally!). The Sunni tribes have decided that they don’t like the foreign based Al Qaida and are beginning to play ball with the Americans. Hey, it’s an opportunity. With more luck this alliance of convenience might hold and these Sunnis might be able to cut a deal with the Malaki. But these developments, like most of the Iraqi situation frankly, have little to do with a 10-15% blip in US troop levels.

But Cordesman reminds us: “Prime Minister Maliki may sometimes tell us what we want to hear, but he is at best weak and ineffective and may well be far more committed to sectarian Shi’ite positions than he has publicly stated.”

What we need (IMHO) is a tough negotiator to knock some Parliamentary heads together in Baghdad. I’m thinking of someone like Richard Holbrooke who doggedly pursued peace in the Balkans during the Clinton administration.

A President who was determined to find peace must be temperamentally capable of braving setbacks, settling for partial successes, and be willing to bargain, which means giving up things and stepping out one’s ideologically-bound comfort zone. It means building relationships with allies, rather than making fun of them.

Bill Clinton was capable of all of this. He won 2 wars in the Balkans and Kosovo in the teeth of vicious and unpatriotic Republican Congressional opposition. Hyper-emotional modern conservatives can’t seem to understand that smart leaders build alliances not out of sentimentality, but because it lays the groundwork for victory and long-term security.

280

It’s extremely difficult to take someone seriously when they talk about al-Qaeda in Iraq at length, as if that’s the big problem in Iraq. The fact that it’s even entertained is pretty amazing. That’s approximately concern #153 of the occupation. The patient has a punctured lung, bleeding in the brain, and is about to have a heart attack and we’re talking about how his broken pinky is healing just swell.

If we want this to turn around, let’s work on some of these:

  1. Stop thousands of tortured bodies from filling the streets every month
  2. Electricity
  3. Water/sewage
  4. Massive unemployment
  5. Massive refugee crisis
  6. Schools of all tiers
  7. Hospitals
  8. Making the police/military not riddled with insurgents and their sympathizers
  9. Government services
  10. Massive government corruption

There, that’s ten. I could go for a long, long time before I start worrying about a foreign terror cell that numbers only 2-4000 individuals in a country of 26 million where 50+% of the population supports the idea of attacking U.S. troops as a means to get them to leave.

Christ on a stick.