I’ve been browsing some conservative blogs off and on, and I’ve seen a distinct pattern in the past few months: more and more claims that things are getting objectively better in Iraq. Links like this,, this,, this, and this exemplify the kinds of things either being written or pointed to. (Actually, those are the examples that are convenient; there may very well be others out there that are better argued or have more factual meat to them - if anyone finds any, feel free to share, to make this more interesting.)
Now, I’ve heard all this before, but never with this kind of unanimity (I’m not sure if that’s the word I’m looking for, or even if it’s a word!), and not usually with numbers (not even numbers drawn out of thin air).
So how much better are things REALLY getting? Are the metrics being used to say “things are getting better and the surge is working” significant? If not, what SHOULD we look at to get an accurate picture?
Seems to me, if there were such things that wouldn’t be immediately ripped to pieces, some of our Usual Suspects would be trying to push it pretty hard.
Things have gotten significantly better. (add usually disclaimers about how it could all change tomorrow, yada yada).
Read the New York Times article on the subject. If the Times agrees that things are getting better, they must be.
BTW, that article focuses on Baghdad, which has taken the worst of it and is the slowest to recover. And yet, it’s recovering. In other areas, the situation is much better.
Also, shipments of arms from Iran are way down, which is a big deal.
Does this mean a corner has been turned? For now, maybe. These things are often only really visible in hindsight. Five years from now we’ll know if this was a defining moment in Iraq’s history, or just a lull before the fighting starts again.
One thing you can be sure of - Iraq has been a huge disaster for al-Qaida. Iraqis now hate them with a passion, and al-Qaida’s stock in the Muslim world has plummeted. They’ve also lost a lot of foot soldiers and key leaders in Iraq. This is a very good thing.
“Better” is a horribly-inappropriate word for what Bush has done. How about “la bit ess hellish” instead? If, that is, you consider the nearing completion of internal ethnic cleansing and the completion of effective partitioning along ethnic lines to be a “success”. And actually, when compared to what is achievable and causes the fewest further needless deaths, it probably is. Compared to any goal Bush has ever stated or apparently ever believed, it’s just the opposite.
Why would I believe them ? They helped push the war in the first place.
And we’re about to turn the corner ! :rolleyes: Why would I believe an article by American journists in a city terrorized by American soldiers ? American journalists have zero credibility on Iraq, and how honest do you expect an Iraqi to be to an American if he or she wants to live ?
And violence in Baghdad is down in no small part because it’s done. The ethnic cleansers succeeded.
Assuming they ever existed, or had much effect if they did.
Hardly; it’s been a massive victory, because of the damage it’s done to us and how it’s served as a recruiting tool and training ground for them. And how it eliminated a major enemy of theirs, Saddam.
All I can say is Balad Air Base is freaking ridiculously awesome right now compared to Habbaniyah circa 2003-04. The fact that I’m surfing the Straight Dope from my air-conditioned office at my 8-5 job is proof enough of that.
And the big “death toll” number in Stars & Stripes seems to be increasinig at a much lower rate these days.
Alas, though, my personal good fortune isn’t enough to persuade me that coming to this country in the first place and then staying here for the last 4 years has been a good idea for the US or the Iraqis. All the ‘getting better’ in the world doesn’t make up for the hell our two countries have gone through since March '03.
A lot of people, for a long time before and during the initial stages of the war argued or at least presented the idea that more troops would be needed to secure Iraq.
Granted the numbers we have there today are no where near some of the numbers suggested (I’ve heard 400,000) but they are larger … more troops = more security.
Too bad it took this long to the powers that be to realize this basic fact.
For the record I spent my year there (and another in Afghanistan) … I pray to
Not to be a kill joy but this is something that isn’t really best determined thru debate. Gather the best evidence you can and decide for yourself. So many people desperately want Iraq to be a disaster in transference for their hatred of Bush that there is zero chance of them being remotely objective.
I mean, really, for scale: if 50 million Americans were force to flee their homes for some reason, don’t you think we’d be pretty justified in calling whatever happened a “disaster”?
Moving the situation in Iraq 1 to 1 to here in the US is an incredibly ignorant and pointless exercise.
Indeed, and realizing that they may take quite a while (but still not the 15+ years Saddam and then the 40+ years one of his pig sons would have continued running things)…
And do you have any reason for anyone to believe that ? Saddam Hussein was doing a better job than us ! His Iraq was safer, more prosperous and more free than our Iraq. Starting out from a better position would normally make progress to an even better one easier.
As anyone who has ever had their wisdom teeth pulled can attest, sometimes you have to make a situation worse in order to make it better in the long run. Not that I am justifying anything done in Iraq, but your logic seems a touch simplistic.
The analogy doesn’t work. The situation is much more like someone with bad wisdom teeth being smashed in the face with a baseball bat. And then throwing acid in the victim’s face. And then someone like Hail Ants comes along and says, “Sure things are bad now, but when you heal up you’ll be so much better off !”
Do you never tire of this ridiculous hyperbole? Will you never understand that the world isn’t a comic book?
As to the OP, I’d say it’s a difficult question to objectively answer. What metric are we using to judge if it’s ‘better’…based on what time frame? It’s QUIETER today than, say, a few months ago. Is that ‘better’? There seems to be less violence today than a few months ago (in most places)…is that ‘better’? Better than what exactly? And as Sam said, it could all change again at any time. I think things will be ‘better’ in Iraq when we get a year or two under our belts of relative peace and prosperity…which doesn’t seem likely to me any time soon.
If we take ehtnic groups: The Kurds would argue that they are better off. Many Shiites would argue the same. Those two groups are happier not being ruled by the Sunni despots of Saddam’s reign.
If we go by gender, Women had more freedom in Iraq than other Arab nations, and there have been reports of Islamic fundie movements in parts of Iraq that negatively impact women.
The Kuwaiti’s are probably happy to no longer fear Saddam, along with the Saudis.
The Sunnis of Iraq certainly got the short end of the stick.
It all depends on whose perspective you wish to take. There is no such thing as the average Iraqi.
Regardless of what you think of the analogy, my point is “Starting out from a better position would normally make progress to an even better one easier” is an extremely blithe & simplistic look at a very complicated situation. There are many, many situations in life where that is simply not true, and given the nature of what is going on in Iraq, it is certainly possible this is one of those.