This entry posted by Joel Turnipseed
I have been opposed to the war in/on Iraq since I first heard its stirrings in the Clinton administration. Hell, since I first heard some of the guys I was with in the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf war yell "All the way to Baghdad!" -- even as the bodies were smoking on the highway from Kuwait City to Basra. Still, a part of me has always thought, "But man, wouldn't it be great if we DID liberate Iraq; if we did bring it back to its famous former wealth and tolerance?"
As the insurgency grows, and the casualties mount, that question is getting harder and harder to ignore. Yeah, Bush sounds overly simplistic when he flies off to Britain and talks about our long-shared tradition of civil liberties and rule of law (which, for all their erosion, are still strongest right here where we are), but I have to admit that as much as I dislike our Commander in Chief, I was moved when he asked this week, "And why not these for the Iraqi people?"
Two great pieces have caught my eye on this question. The first is Mark Follman's Salon.com interview with Amnesty International director William Schulz. Schulz warns that the left needs to rethink just how unencroachable civil liberties must be in the age of advanced technology and sophisticated, state-free terrorist organizations: imagine, if you will, how few your liberties would be after a decade's succession of 9/11s? Remember, in the decade previous to 9/11, we had a first WTC bombing and an Oklahoma City bombing, marking 9/11 as a change in degree, not kind, of a long succession.
As for breeding grounds of terror -- those who wish we would just get the hell out of Iraq should read George Packer's 28-page monster in this week's New Yorker, accompanied by incredible photographs by Gilles Peress. Sadly, it is not available online, but the New Yorker has put together a superb slide-show of Peress' photos with an accompanying voice-account by Packer. If you don't subscribe to the print edition, run out to a newstand today: this is the best article written on postwar Iraq. It will allow you to spend a lot of time gloating over what wishful-thinkers and strategic fuck-ups Wolfowitz and Cheney and Rumsfeld are, while at the same time forcing you to ask yourself: "And why not for the Iraqi people?"
It's easy enough -- I find myself there all the time -- to hope that we fail in Iraq: our national hubris will be checked, our bullying armies shown up, our gloating administration choking down their arrogance. But it should be possible to argue that the Bush Administration was grossly mistaken in its rhetoric and its actions while at the same time agreeing with its better aims for Iraq: because if Iraq fails, terrorists (and they're not just Neo-Con bogeymen) will have yet another broken state within which they can operate, and we will have betrayed both the Iraqi people and our own future liberties.
posted by minnesotajAmerica must and will fail in Iraq.
No nation should tolerate invasion and occupation, no matter how virtuous are the occurier's stated intentions.
It is ludicrous to even entertain the idea that an at-best Christian and at-worst secular nation such as the US can bring order and stability to a country like Iraq, and happiness to its people.
Sadly, this is a lesson that history has taught us many times, but is unnecessarily being re-learned on the backs of thousands of dead Iraqis and hundreds of dead Americans.
Posted by: and by on November 24, 2003 12:04 AMWell, anonymous, I have two things to say to that outburst. The first is that I think your third paragraph is charitably described as overly-pessimistic and uncharitably described as patronizingly unjust to the Iraqi people (and humanity). If only like could help like, we'd all be in dire straights. Second, I expressly left out the means by which we would bring self-dignity, self-rule, and a government based on law and human rights to the Iraqi people—it could be the UN, multi-national Arab force, or our own soldiers and Marines. I personally prefer some combination of all three & think Bush shit all over the world by pre-empting this possibility at the outset: the UN and the Arab world seemed ready for such a solution before we went in guns a'blazing. But that's done. The whole point of my piece is that it's becoming increasingly clear that the threat of terrorism is a) real b) worldwide c) technologically sophisticated and that we not only a) owe it to the Iraqi people to do the best, regardless of our opinions of Bush, to do well by them—and wish them all the possibilities of a good life arising from a good outcome to our shared crisis but b) if they go down, we stand a good chance of going down with them.
For all my dislike of the Bush Administration, I think we're all a lot better off trying to find a way to make this invasion and occupation end well for everyone than we are—as you seem to be—hoping it goes to hell in a handbasket.
Posted by: minnesotaj on November 24, 2003 01:15 AM"The whole point of my piece is that it's becoming increasingly clear that the threat of terrorism is a) real b) worldwide c) technologically sophisticated"
I'm all for good end for the iraqi people and US soldiers but...
Since the war in Iraq and Afghanistan seem to have increased the threat of terrorism are you sure you want Bush to succeed?
Do you think Bush would handover control to the UN (which could be the only thing to save Iraq) if things in Iraq improve?
And what do you call terrorism?
Most terrorists want to spread fear and influence/change the current government. It's not that they want to kill all the people. The people who die are just collateral damage for the goal of the terrorists.
Bush's goal was regime change. The innocent iraqis who died were just collateral damage.
How is Bush different? Bush is just a bigger terrorist, he's responsible for more innocent deaths.
The main problem is Georges W. My bet that in case on a regime change in US , everything will go smoother (i.e France and Germany will help).
The sad thing is that if election where hold today, Bush would be reelected with a comfortable margin. That puzzle the whole world: how come Americans still like this butcher?
So, what other choice is left?
The only chance to get a regime change in US is to have Iraq war degenerate in a way US opinion will throw out Bush.
Because, I have read that with Bush staying in power for another 4 years, there is a good chance that military uses a nuclear bomb somewhere.
Posted by: Jacques on November 25, 2003 03:22 PMUnforutnately the problem is not George W. It's the whole US (and European, I might add) establishment. Even if Dean won next year (which he won't) Americans would still be dying in Iraq and there is nothing France, Germany or Russia can do to help (apart from releiving some US soldiers which doesn't really help the situation, it just prolongs it). There's no way the US is going to pull out of Iraq in the next five years unless the establishment is forced to do so by the 'common' people. As for Iraq and liberating it... D
emocratic change has to come from within, otherwise it is not legitimate and will not succed. If Americans invaded ex-Yugoslavia (that's where I'm from) in say 1982 to save us from the 'evil scourge of communism' I am sure that about 80% of the population would be against them and would fight them. The same thing is happening in Iraq. Let's just hope that they don't make the same mess out of Iran...
Turnipseed, the neocons have put you under the ether, or something. The notion of Iraq being "liberated" by Westerners is chauvinistic and racist ... and totally doomed.
Posted by: Steve on November 26, 2003 09:56 AMBut it should be possible to argue that the Bush Administration was grossly mistaken in its rhetoric and its actions while at the same time agreeing with its better aims for Iraq --
Minnesotaj
Tell me, Mr. J, what are Bush's "better aims for Iraq?" Take a look at the Washington Post article Dack put up on Wednesday for a hint:
In a two-page fatwa issued on June 28, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani declared that he would only support a constitution written by Iraqis chosen through a general election, not by a council selected by the Americans.... Bremer chafed at the idea that a cleric would be able to dictate Iraq's democratic transition. "Is the political structure of Iraq going to be in the hands of one man?" Bremer said to a group of visitors in October.
Yes, that's right, Sistani calls for general elections and Bremer is irritated, thinking that Sistani has hijacked the process because he torpedoed Bremer's idea that the Constitution would be written by criminals like Chalabi.
But of course we can't have free elections, because then the Iraqi people might decide that they don't want to privatize their oil industry and take economic advice from the likes of Yegor Gaidar. Nor would they want to sell their oil to Israel and have their country used as a military base by the US Army to threaten Iraq’s neighbors.
All of these are the true aims of the Bush administration, and for the next 13 months there’s not much that Americans who disagree with these goals can do about it – except not get taken in by Bush’s Wilsonian rhetoric.
Posted by: Vin Carreo on November 27, 2003 02:49 AMWhen the French revolutionaries set out to liberate the rest of Europe, it got them Robespierre, and later Napoleon.
Posted by: David Tomlin on November 29, 2003 01:05 AMDavid Tomlin -- You speak like Edmund Burke. You must be a paleo-conservative.
As for the rest of this crowd... honestly? Are you paying attention? There's no question Bush (and, worse: Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of the hands up the puppet's ass) is using 9/11 as a means to execute a war on a lot that we hold sacred. But they didn't start it. Terrorists did. And not just on 9/11.
I was thrilled when Tom Friedman cribbed my post on RationalEnquirer in today's NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/opinion/30FRIE.html
I was hoping for an interesting dialogue on a liberal/left response for bringing change to the Middle East. Instead I got "woe is me" and "fuck Bush." Look, the invasion of Iraq is over--it can't be undone... Let's realize that the road to the palace of wisdom is a long scar--a healed wound--and start finding some compelling things to say about where to place the first stitch.
Posted by: minnesotaj on November 29, 2003 10:46 PM"As for the rest of this crowd... honestly? Are you paying attention? There's no question Bush ... is using 9/11 as a means to execute a war on a lot that we hold sacred. But they didn't start it. Terrorists did. And not just on 9/11." -- Minnesotaj
Few people questioned the war in Afghanistan. They might have questioned the tactics, but no one questioned the goal. But you're conflating Iraq with Al-Qaeda -- just like the Bush administration.
Yes Iraq is a done deal, but it seems to me that you are the one that's not paying atention. If you look at what these people have said, Israel, oil and political power have been their priorities, not democracy, and there's little we can do about it until we kick them out a year from now. By that time, the only reasonable solution to the Iraq fiasco may well be "cutting and running." Even now, the guerillas have managed to make a multilateral occupation force untenable. (Just yesterday they killed 7 Spanish officers and 2 Japanese diplomats).
As for who started the "war on terror" (so called), we bear some responsibility for Al-Qaeda and we cooperated with them up until 1998. We can't change that fact, but at least we should recognize how corrupt our political system really is. When the general who conducted the war in Iraq says that we'll soon have a military dictatorship here, I think we need to think about a "paleo-conservative" foreign policy and a cut-back in foreign intervention and military budgets.
And it seems to me you should address these issues rather than dismiss us as paleo-conservatives and whiners.
Posted by: Vin Carreo on November 30, 2003 06:52 AMVin --
I'm not looking for a way to do well by us, only, but by the Iraqis as well. So when you say that ... If you look at what these people have said, Israel, oil and political power have been their priorities, not democracy, and there's little we can do about it until we kick them out a year from now., I somewhat agree with you. But what are we going to do then? I haven't yet said one good thing about Bush--the gist of my original post was, "I don't believe Bush when he says he'd like freedom and democracy for the Iraqi people--but that doesn't mean I don't think those things would be fantastic for them, and I think if we (the World, not the Bush Administration) don't make great strides toward achieving that, we're screwed. Somehow this became an apologia for Bush: that confirms my suspicion that many would rather hate Bush than think creatively/look at the world as it is.
As for Tommy Franks, he didn't say that we'd have a military government after the next 9/11 with a smile on his face--he was stating what I think is a real possibility. Which is why I don't think, under any circumstances, we can just "cut-and-run," which is why William Schulz at Amnesty International thinks maybe we really do need a War on Terror (just not the Bush Administration's) and tighter controls on our personal freedoms. Al Qaieda is just a more virulent strain--the bug has been around a lot longer, and is not a result of American Imperialism (though that does aggravate things).
So, it's not getting "taken in by Bush's Wilsonian rhetoric" to say, "Hey--we need to make sure Iraq succeeds, and succeeds on terms that are contrary to support of future terrorists." Iraq is not synonymous with Bush. It's future is, however, tightly intertwined with ours.
Posted by: minnesotaj on November 30, 2003 11:29 AM"we need to make sure Iraq succeeds, and succeeds on terms that are contrary to support of future terrorists."
Very well MJ, how do you suppose we do that? You and Tom Friedman can plead forever with the Bush administration and they'll never listen. Hell, they don't even listen to their own experts. So for the next 13 months the occupation is sure to be ineptly handled, and Bush will exacerbate the problem by trying to find any short-term solution he can to get him thru the election.
By that time, even Douglas MaCarthur couldn't salvage this mess. It's probably too late already. The Pentagon report said that the 3 months before Ramadan were "crucial to turning around the security situation," which obviously hasn't happened. The British Foreign Minister said the same thing, while adding that we need more troops. A couple weeks ago the Financial Times quoted a neocon "close to George W Bush" as saying that Iraq is a "noble failure."
There are some things even superpowers can't do. Newsweek has an article this week saying our commander in Mosul did everything right and his sector is still falling apart. By 2005 it will almost certainly be worse. Cutting and running seems to me to be the only option that is within our capabilities.
Posted by: Vin Carreo on December 1, 2003 05:20 AMThe guy who's not paying attention is Tom Friedman.
First, even though the Bush team came to this theme late in the day, this war is the most important liberal, revolutionary U.S. democracy-building project since the Marshall Plan. The primary focus of U.S. forces in Iraq today is erecting a decent, legitimate, tolerant, pluralistic representative government from the ground up.
Funny stuff. The initial "democrcracy-building project" was to turn the keys to Iraq over to lying thief Ahmed Chalabi. The latest scheme is a Rube Goldberg "election" process designed to keep effective power in the hands of US-appointed leaders. No, the US won't like what democracy in Iraq looks like, and won't let it happen ... at least not by choice.
Friedman used to make a lot more sense when he said the US would be better off in Iraq with a Saddam-free iron-fisted junta. Which they still might get.
Posted by: dack on December 1, 2003 09:32 AMWe've already lost the war. The Iraqi's never surrendered. All we're doing now is trying to mulct the situation for all it's worth, for the benefit of Haliburton, defense contractors, and the oil industry.
Very little of the $87 billion that was recently approved for the Iraq situation will make its way to Iraq, to the Iraqi people, or to our soldiers who need better equipment and medical care.
The ultra-rich and powerful have fucked over America, again.
Posted by: Rougy on December 1, 2003 10:22 AMMr. Turnipseed: We should "agree with [the Bush administration's] better aims for Iraq"?! What evidence is there that the administration has better aims for Iraq? Sure, here on the left everyone I know favors a tolerant, self-determining Iraq, and has done so since well before this administration's forebears (and current officials) firmly cemented Saddam Hussein and the Baath party in power and supported its depredations. The administration reached for the "liberate Iraq" rhetoric at the last moment to get its war when all else failed to bring the public along, knows the need to salt its public utterances with similar sentiments, and appears to be moving toward the illusion of self-determination so that it can flee the disaster it has created and live to fight another day. But nearly every bit of the available evidence indicates that a tolerant, self-determining Iraq is contrary to all that the administration, and those it represents, strive for geopolitically. Give me a U.S. administration that actually cares to increase tolerance and self-determination in the world -- one that I've not seen in my lifetime -- and I'll support it wholeheartedly.
Posted by: Chuck on December 1, 2003 12:08 PMThe George Packer article is up on the new yorker website. It's kind of hard to find so here's the URL:
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031124fa_fact1
This article is a MUST READ
Posted by: Ted Fred on December 1, 2003 03:23 PMAs a Bush 2, Bush 1 and R.R. voter I think I speak with some insight into the mind of the leadership. This is a religious war with as much chance of ending rationally and peacefully as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Despite the platitudes, the end goal is nothing more than Islamic/Arab-nationalism-free government in Iraq functioning as a client state of American and Israeli interests.
What the majority of Iraqi people want, on the other hand, is a Western-influence-free Islamic theocracy not unlike that of Iran.
Both sides are trying to bluff the other into thinking that their goals are palatable to the other while they jockey for leverage but by next year when it becomes generally clear that there is really no common ground then the quagmire will begin in earnest.
My goal as a voter is to support anyone with a rational vision for the Near East free of religious intolerance and extremism. Since the Republican party has hopelessly lost its way deep in the wilderness of religious extremism, the great need is for a Democrat to rise to the occasion and offer our nation a clear step-by-step plan for understanding and resolving the issues in Iraq and leading us back out of the wilderness.
Wesley Clark, where are you?
Posted by: Patrick McGrath on December 1, 2003 06:39 PM