Last week was the deadliest for “coalition” forces since we “won” the war in Iraq.
Should military casualties increase, will such development be sufficient to spur a change in US policy, either a unilateral withdrawal, a relinquishing of authority and welcoming of international troops (and funds), or an increase of US military involvement?
If we hit 1,000 killed in action, there will be hell to pay from the public.
Until then, remember, we defeated an entire country on the cheap, and most people recognize that while casualties were incredibly minimal, it is a hostile foreign country after all.
So it’ll go on until we hit a grand. Even then our total losses for Afghanistan and Iraq will be far less than on 9/11, but that would be a very sobering number to hit.
At that point, who the hell knows what will happen? We sure as hell can’t just run away and leave the Iraqis hanging out to dry. So, I dunno what’s going to happen. I guess we’ll find out, one way or another.
Let’s put it this way: Our administration thinks that it’s just spiffy to eliminate hazard pay and opposes significan pay raises for the common ranks. It will take a great deal for them to look upon our ordinary military personnel as anything better than expendable commodities.
At this point, I’d say its a bit early to tell whether last week was the start of a new trend…or mearly a blip.
Should it be a new trend though, and casualties increase dramatically, then I’d say that indeed changes to our present policies would be in order. I seriously doubt we’d pull up stakes and bolt, so I don’t see that as an option no matter WHAT the casualties are…at least in the forseeable future anyway. So, that leaves your other options.
Relinquish of authority? What would this do exactly? I’d say we’d certainly welcome international troops, but I seriously doubt the US will ‘relinquish authority’, and even if they did, I don’t see what that would buy us. What would be the point? Unless you are saying we’d relinquish authority and THEN bolt, leaving the international community to hash things out. Again, I’m not seeing that.
Increased US military involvement? Well, to my knowledge, this is already happening to some extent. Certainly we are attempting to rotate in fresh troops, and get those that have been on the line out of there to decompress. I’d say that, if there were serious ramping up of the resistance, there would be a similar ramping up of the US military presence also.
-XT
It’s been a while now, can someone refresh by memory on the official reasoning why the US isn’t prepared to loosen control in favour of the UN - just interested how this is currently being explained to the US people ?
Very little “explaining” being done as far as I can tell, LC.
I believe the US would have to request UN assistance - which it has not seemed overly eager to do. And I believe the consistent line is that US troops will not be subject to any authority other than the US.
I have not heard mucu one way or the other concerning the level of losses experienced. Though I understand (no specific sources) recruiting has taken somewhat of a hit.
Over the weekend the Chi Trib had a fold out with the pictures of all the dead servicemen. Time will tell if we see more of that.
From London_Calling
I think Dinsdale pretty much hit this one…the ‘official’ reason would be the reluctance to place our military (assuming we stayed after turning things over) under someone else’s command…especially in light of the fact that, right or wrong, we did the heavy lifting in this conflict (along with the British of course). There is still quite a bit of resentment that we HAD to do this alone (except for the British who are looked upon as our only true friend atm by many), though its fading.
I’m NOT saying the resentment is justified btw (some is, some isn’t), I understand the opposition from many countries was justified in their minds (some is, some isn’t :)), but the fact remains that, right or wrong, a lot of Americans resent the UN and ‘the world’ over this thing still, and so far at least, there isn’t a general call to turn things over to the UN. As the feeling is mutual I’m sure (re the worlds citizens vs America’s), it will be some time before both sides of citizens patch things up and play nice together again.
As to explaining it to the American people…what would be the point? They know already, and by and large are in agreement with that ‘official’ position (IMO at least). My impression is there is no vast movement here that WANTS to place this in the hands of the UN with the US in a more subservient role. If there is, please cite it and I will stand corrected.
But even if we DID put this in the hands of the UN at this time…what would be the point? Do you think that this would magically stop the attacks? These folks have directly TARGETTED the UN, as well as the Red Cross. If we turned operations over to the UN, the situation would remain largely the same (as per the attacks). Or do you think things would change if the UN was in charge?
-XT
My understanding is that the UN - and other nations - have more experience in “peacekeeping” than the US military.
IMO, the main reason we do not aggressively seek more international support is that it would most likely require some admission of error on our part in prosecuting this unpopular war that we could not finish on our own. The current US admin seems extremely unwilling to admit it erred (but I acknowledge, most admins probably share this reluctance.)
Polls and stats are a funny thing. EVERYONE I have talked with acts as tho it is just a common sense fact that we MUST do whatever we can to encourage others to help us share the load in terms of economic and human costs. These include people of both parties, and people who supported and opposed the war. But, I move within a rather limited circle.
It seems to me that the admin is acting somewhat callously towards the lives of our servicemen. As tho they are expendable statistics. I wonder if they have a figure, such as the grand AD suggests, as their “break-even” profit point.
All the admin is giving its servicemen and vets are a bunch of words. Not pay or benefits, or a clear mission or exit strategy. In a volunteer military, I wonder how many folks will sign up to be a sitting target while acting as a policeman…
So long as the administration seems willing to accept continually mounting losses, I wonder if it might be better to incur a whole bunch at once - a la the Lebanon barracks bombing - if it would spur the admin to alter it’s current approach.
Actually, the main message I seem to see is that things are really going swell in Iraq, infrastructure is being rebuilt and increased services provided at a rapid clip, and it is just the liberal media which refuses to promote all of the accomplishments and instead focusses overmuch on the military casualties.
Time will tell. But if the justification for getting into this mess is any indication, I’m not overly faithful in the admin’s veracity concerning such things.
As I’ve stated before, I simply don’t care enough about a single person in Iraq to warrant the continued expendititure of dollars and life - with no end in sight.
Bush 1 did that exact thing in 1992, so why not do it again?
You probably wouldn’t be too far off the mark if you assumed that every Republican (and a lot of Independents and Democrats) in the US has little or no respect for the UN. That org does not garner a lot of respect here. You can argue about whether that is justified or not, but politicians like Bush can pretty much count on it to deflect criticism about “going it alone”. Not with all Americans, of course, but a good chunk.
I’m trying to respond to dinsdale, xtisme and John Mace with this one post:
I could understand this pov better if Bush hadn’t gone to the UN with the begging bowel in September:
*“Now the nation of Iraq needs and deserves our aid and all nations of good will should step forward and provide that support "
Mr Bush said the UN could “contribute greatly to the cause of Iraqi self-government”, but he did not see the need for a greater UN role in Iraq.
“As in the aftermath of other conflicts, the United Nations should assist in developing a constitution, training civil servants, and conducting free and fair elections,” he said.
And the White House has flatly rejected French proposals for the early handover of power to Iraqi politicians, describing them as unworkable. *
Coclusion: the administration wants the UN to bail it out but the UN won’t play the game; ‘give up some control and you get international troops’.
On the wider point:
A lot of people seem to conflate the humanitarian function of the UN with it’s potential as a peacekeeping option. Obviously, its limited involvement in Iraq has been to do with humanitarian issues; the two work well in tandem, but don’t have to.
After both ‘peacekeeping’ and the ‘humanitarian’ role lays what only the UN has any experience of which is ‘nation-building’ – can’t do that without the underpinning of the former two.
Interesting that both of you mention ‘under some else’s command’. Not only, in the whole scheme, is it a small issue, it’s plainly wrong, US service personal serve under British commanders all the time, and vice versa. They call it all kinds of nonsense like ‘exchange’ and ‘secondment’ but it happens.
I just cannot see it- in itself - as a valid real world, 10-20 deaths a week explanation.
Finally, I find it curious that there is, apparently, so much talk of a Draft, and little of compromising with the UN in order relieve pressure on US manpower. One would have thought the US media might have been encouraging the president to bail out the US military and to save US lives. Especially given that the pretext was WMD, of which there aren’t any. But seemingly not . . .
LC:
I’ve heard Bush’s UN speech called “arogant”, but never “begging”. Also, there is no discussion of any substance in the US concerning the draft. It makes a good media story, that’s all.
As for the “under someone else’s command”, the issue is that the whole occupation force would be under non-US control. That some troops find themselves under British command from time to time is very different.
London_calling, I haven’t heard much real talk about a draft to be honest. I seriously doubt that we will EVER have a draft again, short of a WWIII type scenerio. Just my impression, but I don’t see anyone getting Congress to pass it…nor do I see anyone even seriously trying atm. Again, I could be wrong and just have missed it, but I’ve heard nothing more than scared rabbit types complaining about the thought of a new draft.
The administration definitely went to the UN…but I wouldn’t exactly say it was ‘hat in hand’. People who go ‘hat in hand’ to someone usually pretty much go along with whatever demands are asked of them…they are desparate, no? I see it more as a political move where Bush could pretty much quell the voices here by going to the UN, asking for assistance, etc. But by having any UN role kept UNDER US control, he kills several birds with a single stone. He keeps the conservatives happy (who would howl bloody murder if the UN took the primary role there, and the US was subservient or under them). He makes a token gesture to the left by having gone to the UN and asked for help. He lays out a position thats (in his mind, IMO) a win win situation…either the UN does help, providing us with money and troops, but keeping the US in control. Or, the UN does NOT help, in which case he can say “I tried”, at the same time saying “Look…they can’t put their differences asside to assist poor Iraq in her time of need”.
The US doesn’t have a problem with having our troops under another countries command, per se (though there is definitely a history of having such problems…look at Pershing in WWI), but we DO have a problem with having our troops under such control when we are the major contributer of said troops. If we were part of a larger internation force, say, where we were only contributing a few thousand troops, I’d say we wouldn’t have a major problem with someone else being in charge. However, when we ARE the major contributer of troops, I’d say there would definitely be a problem…both politically and militarily.
This, of course, has nothing at all to do with Iraq, IMO. The Iraq situation is now firmly political. Bush feels (IMO) that he can’t back down after all that has happened. The US has a lot of prestige on the line here, and a step back would be seen (correctly) as an admission of our being wrong. France, Germany, etc won’t back down either, as they have their own politics (and populations) to make happy. They certainly COULD send troops and money, it might even be in their best interests to do so (its in EVERYONES best interest in the industrialized world to have stability over there and a strong Iraq), but there is no way in hell they WILL do that. Its a stalemate.
And so, America will continue to do the heavy lifting over there, both in terms of money and troops, for the forseeable future. Maybe it will work out, and America will come out of this looking good…and maybe it won’t, in which case America will come out of this looking bad indeed. Time will tell.
I don’t understand what your point was about the UN’s roles. What are you trying to say there? How does it relate to if the UN was currently in charge of the peacekeeping aspects of this conflict? Are you saying that if they were in charge there wouldn’t be any more attacks? Would be? I’m not sure what you are saying to be honest. Could you elaborate a bit on what you are getting at there.
-XT
My short response is that the US seems to acknowledge UN authority when it is in the US’s interest, but distance ourselves when advantageous.
I think Bush II went to the UN to see if he could get support for his Iraq agenda. When it became apparent that he would not, he claimed additional express UN authority was not needed.
My belief is that the US considers itself sufficiently strong that it sees no benefit to risking placing itself under the authority of any body other than itself. Moreover, the US participates only to the extent that it reserves a complete veto right. Due to its economic and military strength, the US is in a pretty unique position.
It isn’t. What we get told through “official” channels is that the USA has asked for help “to fight terrorism and rebuild Iraq” and got turned down. Little details like anything that explains what’s going on don’t matter.
As for our “press”, they’re too busy talking about how unhappy McDonald’s is with dictionary publishers for daring to put “McJob” into their books to worry about trivialities like international relations.
That is incorrect. Bush 1 had no mandate to invade Iraq, his mandate was to liberate Kuwait. He hung nobody out to dry, except maybe himself.