Your presence is required here, Scylla.
Where would “home” be?
The belief that only force can solve America’s problems in the Middle East is what got the United States into the Iraq quagmire to begin with.
Also, comparisons with the U.S. Civil war and with World Wars I and II ignore one very salient point: those were wars between nations. And because they were wars between nations, they had well-defined ends. A defeated government can sign a treaty and end a war. Who will sign the treaty to end Scylla’s proposed “total war” against “militant Islam”? When the United States has reduced the Middle East to rubble only to see militant Islam rise in Indonesia in response, what then?
When the United States has reduced the Middle East to rubble, only to see outraged United States citizens of the Islamic faith rise up in anger, what then?
Scylla, your idea, aside from its humanitarian merits or lack of same, suffers from the same flaw that the invasion of Iraq had to begin with. It has no exit strategy. If “total war against militant Islam” becomes the only acceptable course for the United States then the United States will have condemned itself to war without end, hallelujah. I’m quite frankly astonished that you don’t see that.
I believe they immigrated from Baghdad during the late 70’s. It’s not they aren’t good neighbors, I even dated their daughter for a time, but if you have ever heard Assyrian music you’ll understand why I want them to leave. They very much supported the war in the hope that Iraq would become a peaceful place for Christians, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen unless all the radical Muslims kill themselves. It’s a shame that all the moderate Muslims are being slaughtered, but at least we are giving them a chance at democracy. I think that was the correct and noble thing to do, and if it works out it will be well worth the lives of all those who have died (including my neighbor’s son, a much braver man than I). Funny, my neighbors seem to have been the only people who said at the start of this war that it would take at least 10 years to complete. I knew it wasn’t really about WMD but about liberation. We will know we have won when Shia, Sunni and Christian Iraqis can live together in peace.
One wonders if the people who died would consider their deaths a good trade for a chance at democracy which was never anything other than miniscule ( and would first require them throwing us out ). Or the crippled, the tortured, the refugees, the raped, and so on.
Oh, I heard some of my fellow evil liberals say it would take decades - until the oil runs out - not just 10 years.
Garbage; it was about oil and religion. It was NEVER about liberation. Go tell a woman who can’t go outdoors without covering her face or get an education anymore how we “liberated” her. Go tell the gays who are being killed.
Funny, they were doing that more or less before we invaded. Saddam may have been a bloodthirsty tyrant, but at least he kept order; and as we are graphically seeing in Iraq, anarchy makes even most tyranny look good by comparison.
If it was about liberation, why couldn’t it have waited until we had set up a fully secure, stable, functioning government in Afghanistan? Why couldn’t it wait until we had rooted out the Taliban in both Afghanistan and Pakistan? Why couldn’t it wait until we had shut down Al-Q’s ability to operate in Afghanistan and Pakistan? If it was solely about liberation, then it was compromising American security interests from the get go, and what this administration has done is to put Iraqi interests ahead of Americans.
What a fantastic load of horseshit.
Give it four more Freidmans and we win! Yay!
Stay the course, stay the course!
-Joe
I have to say I love the idea that terrorists are kickin’ back in their lounges and catching a bit of American domestic news.
I have a theoretical challenge. Let’s take some pollsters and go ask some terrorists some questions. Do you recognise these names? Pelosi? Cheney? Rumsfeld? Rice? Obama? Biden? What about these terms? Capitol Hill? Democrat? Republican?
I think the idea that terrorists in the ME are somehow avidly watching all the news they can, following along with U.S. domestic matters, is idiotic and arrogant.
Oh, and waving our right to know what’s going on in a war depends on the people in charge being both competent and guaranteed to do what we want. That way we know they’re doing the right things and that we should re-elect them without actually knowing these things. Because freedom isn’t just some abstract concept we want more of; freedom means we get to make better choices.
You’re going back to the wrong first principles. We’re not making war on another country, where ‘total war’ might lead to a quick, comparatively bloodless victory. We actually had that war, back in March and April of 2003. We won it.
We’re no longer making war on the Iraqi people, or even on some reasonably well-defined subset of the Iraqi people. If we were, then your principles might be worth something.
But the Bush Administration, whose war it still is unless and until Bush signs the bill Congress will deliver to him next Tuesday, on the fourth anniversary of “Mission Accomplished” (it’s a pity they can’t physically hand it to him on the deck of that aircraft carrier), has assorted conflicting goals, which is one reason right there that they can’t ‘win.’
Obviously, the overall goal is a reduction of in-country violence to more or less peacetime levels, and a government that can maintain that level of security without our help.
It occurs to me that a previous Iraqi government managed to attain those goals through its own form of ‘total war’ against its own people. That would have been Saddam Hussein’s government, of course. Like I argued in the run-up to war, all but the worst dictatorships are preferable to chaos.
In order to maintain a ‘peaceful’ Iraq, Saddam was of course ruthless in his response to the least hint of opposition. But in order to be ruthless and effective, as Saddam was, one would have to speak the language, understand the country, and have an effective intelligence network in country. The American forces, as a force, are capable of none of these things. We could commit mass murder, which would accomplish our aims in a trivial sense. But we’d gain the enmity of even our own allies. There would come a point when even Britain, even Canada, even Australia would look at us and say, “you have become evil, and we regard you, not your enemies, as the true threat.”
That would be a loss much bigger than losing in Iraq.
We can’t ‘win’ this war, in the sense of accomplishing the overall goal I’ve stated above, without a suitable Iraqi government. At this point, the violence in country is multifaceted. Sunnis and Al Qaeda in Iraq are to various extents allies and enemies. Both are enemies of us and our Shi’ite proxies. The two main Shi’ite factions, SCIRI and the Sadrists, are wary allies, rivals, and/or opponents, depending on where in Iraq, and the day of the week, and of course they hate the Sunnis, and the Sadrists hate us too. Meanwhile, the Kurds want to be left alone, as long as they get Kirkuk first, which both the Sunnis and the Shi’ites are opposed to, and are willing to counter with violence Kurdish attempts to control Kirkuk. And that’s just the big-picture conflicts.
It’s like Tom Lehrer’s “National Brotherhood Week,” only with a lot more guns and bombs.
Exactly how do we bring peace to all those assorted conflicts, and how do we create a government that isn’t just going to be a Shi’ite majority government that stomps on the Sunnis? And have I mentioned that we don’t want a Shi’ite government that’s too close to Iran, because we don’t like Iran, and we can’t afford to let the Sunnis get stomped on, because all our friends in the region, other than the Israelis, are Sunni governments, most notably the Saudis, whose friendship is, at least for now, indispensable?
Sure, we can bring a massive amount of military force to bear, but given that our basic mission is to save the country, not destroy it, where and how do we bring it to bear? You’d have to be the Einstein of diplomacy to figure this one out.
And of course, the Bush Administration isn’t exactly a crew of Einsteins. Like it or not, if you’re for this war, you’re for their approach to this war; there is no other.
And Bush brings his own prejudices to the table. Iraq is a Shi’ite majority country, and our initial (and primary ongoing) opposition in the occupation phase came from the Sunni insurgents, so we’ve pretty much sided with the Shi’ites ever since the elections at the beginning of 2005 ended the hopes that the Iraqis would democratically install a moderate, secular government. But Bush doesn’t like al-Sadr, and while he sorta likes Hakim these days, that means SCIRI, which is the faction with the closest ties to Iran, which is bad. And Sadr is the only Shi’ite political leader with some degree of cred with Sunnis because he’s stood up to us, and sent aid to them back in the spring 2004 siege of Fallujah. The one guy who could perhaps reach across the main divide within Arab Iraq, and we’ve chased him out of the country.
What Bush seems to want is a pony: a secular, pro-American Iraqi government that will be realized democratically. Given the players, it won’t be secular or pro-American if it’s remotely representative of the Iraqi people. So Bush’s goals can’t be achieved, yet he seems to keep trying - or more to the point, keeps doing stuff to postpone the day that he has to admit its impossibility.
In this context, to say the U.S. should do this or that is stupid talk, unless what the U.S. should do is (a) continue to trust Bush’s approach to and management of the war, or (b) get the fuck out of Dodge. Those are the alternatives that anyone who’s not President Bush can line up behind. There are no others. All discussion of other alternatives is stupid talk.
This is also why ‘resolve’ is neither here nor there. ‘Resolve’ can only be exercised in support of Bush’s contradictory aims. If you can’t get there from here, then ‘resolve’ won’t help. All that means is that you’re more fiercely and persistently banging your head against that cinderblock wall.
Look right there! Blood! Right where you keep hitting the wall with your head! The wall is bleeding! Couple dozen more head butts and it will start to crack!
Mods: since Scylla managed to completely hijack this thread overnight, I didn’t see much alternative to going with the flow this morning. But could you re-title it “One More Damned Iraq Thread (formerly ‘Bush fudging Iraq numbers’)” or some such?
No, Iraq is a civil war between multiple factions of Islam.
That may be the fantasy of some of them, but who cares? Do you think there’s any real chance that al Qaeda is going to destroy the US? I think the real threat to the US posed by a few hundred fanatics has been exaggerated to the point of absurdity. Islamic terrorists are not going to take over America. Relax. You’re going to be fine. The real threat, as usual, is the fanatics at home.
OK, let’s deal with the “Militant Islam means to destroy us” trope.
Intent is all well and good, but one needs the means to realize one’s intent. I might have the intent of levelling the Rockies, but I lack the means. Nobody needs to counter me.
The only way that militant Islam can even do major damage to us, let alone destroy us, is via nuclear weapons. The solution? I remember the last debate between Bush and Kerry in 2004. Kerry was asked what the greatest threat was in the world today. He answered, “Nuclear proliferation.” Exactly.
The way to prevent militant Islam from destroying us was, is, and for years to come will be preventing nuclear weapons from falling into the wrong hands. Our war in Iraq is neither here nor there with respect to that aim.
If someone wanted to make me a militant, a good way to do it would be to kill my family, kill my friends, and destroy my region’s infrastructure and economy. Total war is no solution to militantism.
To itemize the dilemma you present:
- representative government
- that’s secluar and pro-American
is not logically possible if the people to be represented are neither secular nor pro-American…
But the biggest tragedy of this situation is that the dilemma you describe is immediately evident to anyone with even a casual acquaintance with Iraq’s history or politics. It’s chimerical from the start. It is, indeed, wanting a pony.
Sailboat
So, you’re saying that it’s an insurmountable goal? Or, perhaps, a war without end?
Who might want that?
-Joe
You’re remembering wrong. Very few of the early fights went the distance. UFC 5, 6, and 7 had a 30 minute time limit for the main event fights with a possible 5 minute extension, but all but a few ended in less than 5 minutes, some in just a few seconds. Only two fights went to the time limit, a stalemate on the ground between Royce Gracie and Ken Shamrock, and another draw between Ken Shamrock and Oleg Taktarov. The time limit later went down to 10 minute rounds, then the 5 minute rounds they have today.
Fights last longer now than in the early days because MMA fighters know what they’re doing now, and because unlike the early fights there are judges and it’s possible to win on points. In the early fights few fighters had any inkling of takedown defense or ground fighting, so wrestlers would dominate with ground and pound and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu fighters would submit fighters who’d never grappled in their lives. Fights would end in as little as 9 seconds. Competing without one bit of training in takedown defense or ground fighting would be unthinkable today.
As your misrepresentations of my arguments have been corrected by others, and you offer little beyond insults fro which others are also taking you to task, it looks like my presence is not required. Things are going fine without me. I think I’ll stick to the debate for now, thanks.
Well in fact it does, what if the situation in Iraq improves, yet there are still the odd carbomings in Baghdad, if we gauge military/political effectiveness on the amount of carbombs, which can’t be reduced, then what’s the fomula for success if the benchmark is for 0% carbombings?
Where did I say this? All I asked what if carbombings had ever been completely neutralised, if they haven’t and carbomings are still happening despite improvements, then how/why is this a standard above everything else? Just because a carbomb detonates doesn’t hinder Iraqi security recruitment for very long, or political developments.
Keeping the death figures confidential is all well and true if you’re trying to win public sympathy in order to help get support for restoring order, however if the situation doesn’t, then what does it do except clamour more support for the removal of Coalition troops who in some respects are the only people preventing a civil war at this moment?