Good post, Raj.

August 6, 2007 @ 3:45 am | Comment

Quoting Frank Rich in today’s Sunday NYT:

As Adm. Michael Mullen, the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said honorably and bluntly in his Congressional confirmation hearings, “No amount of troops in no amount of time will make much of a difference” in Iraq if there’s no functioning Iraqi government. Opting for wishes over reality, Mr. O’Hanlon and Mr. Pollack buried their pro forma acknowledgment of that huge hurdle near the end of their piece.

August 6, 2007 @ 3:50 am | Comment

Victory is just around the corner.

An article that is based on the insights of Bill Kristol, Pollack and O’Hanlon — cheerleaders for the war and the surge since the beginning — well, I’m convinced. Plus, it is supposedly contrarian, so it must be right. If “contrarian” means “echoes the same Bush administration talking points we’ve heard for 5 years.”

>>”What explains the fact that some critics of the war are unwilling to hear good news of any sort” and get visibly agitated and disdainful when we see signs of progress”

I don’t know. The signs of progress are imaginary? The “good news” is coming from people with zero credibility whose own data disproves their wishful thinking? The Bush administration’s own criteria for surge success aren’t being met?

I could be wrong, though. Why cut and run for the hills with our tails between our legs like a bunch of maggoty cowards when the civil war is in its last throes? We surely just turned the corner. Anyway, I’ve probably been brainwashed by the liberal media.

>>At the very least people should wait until Congress receives its report – predictions of failure before even the legislators have seen it is rather premature in my view.

You mean the highly serious and objective report that Petraeus is going to issue? Wow. How about all of the other reports that have been issued over the past 5 years? Baker-Hamilton? The latest NIE? I guess you are just waiting for a report you like that says we are on the cusp of victory. Generals that disagreed with the surge were fired, while the objective, apolitical Patreus makes the rounds on Hugh Hewitt’s blog. That bit of kabuki theater isn’t fooling…well, it isn’t fooling everyone, at least.

First this:

>>I certainly don’t profess to know what will happen in Iraq, and I think anyone who rather arrogantly predicts it going either way is still only guessing.

Then this:

>>rather than a sudden pull-out due to panic, which would assuredly be catastrophic.

Do I need to point out the contradiction?

August 6, 2007 @ 4:57 am | Comment

Victory is just around the corner.

If you’d bothered to read the article you’d know that was what was not being talked about.

Anyway, I’ve probably been brainwashed by the liberal media.

The Sunday Times is hardly a mindless follower of the Bush agenda.

I think your attitude is rather proving the questions raised by the paper. As soon as anyone suggests there might be hope for Iraq, people start throwing literary temper-tantrums and making daft comments, rather than looking at matters in an intelligent and thoughtful manner.

——-

Lisa, no one would deny a permanent solution can only be reached by the Iraqis themselves. But they need the time to be able to take care of things themselves in terms of security. That time may be approaching, especially in certains provinces, but they’re not there yet across the country.

To pull out because Iraq is still going through political growing-pains would be the wrong position to take. As I mentioned, give enough time to see whether the surge can work or not. After all, the best way for the US to withdraw from Iraq would be in a controlled fashion that allows the Iraqis to take over without too much trouble. The surge could well allow for that.

August 6, 2007 @ 5:37 am | Comment

Hi,

Is the comments for Yahoo lied closed? Can’t seem to post.

Thanks.

August 6, 2007 @ 5:40 am | Comment

>>people start throwing literary temper-tantrums and making daft comments, rather than looking at matters in an intelligent and thoughtful manner.

I think you are proving the point that war supporters generally lack arguments and quickly retreat into ad hominem attacks and claim that those who are against the war are “unhinged” and throwing tantrums, rather than, say, dealing with the specific points raised.

>As soon as anyone suggests there might be hope for Iraq

Try dealing with the specific points I — and others — have already raised. Kristol, O’Hanlon and Pollack aren’t “anyone.” They are specific people with zero credibility on the war and the surge. Also, most of the reports and evidence regarding the war and the surge have been overwhelmingly negative. Seizing on what two war/surge supporters say out of that sea of evidence and touting it as proof that things are working might be called “cherry-picking.” It’s not like the Bush administration has a history of that.

Just another “tantrum” of facts.

August 6, 2007 @ 6:00 am | Comment

Those Democracy Lovers Who Worship the American System Should Take A Look At Iraq

There are still many people on the internet today who worship the American Democratic system, and call for China to adopt such a system. This post wants ask to those people to look at the American experiment in Iraq.

Let me start with an example. If there’s someone who worships the management system of McDonald, and he opens restaurant chain with the same management style as McDonald, and his chain went bankrupt in 2 months. Now is that proof that McDonald’s management system is bad? Of course not. It’s probably because that person wanted to emulate the Mcdonald’s style, but was not a very good at it. It’s that person’s fault, not McDonald’s. So supporters of McDonald’s can simply argue: “McDonald’s system itself is still good, it’s just that that person did not learn everything from that system.” They can then argue, “If McDonald cooperation itself sent its own managers and its own cooks to make a replica of McDonald’s, then that replica must be as successful as the original one. Because this time, it’s not an outsider copying it, it’s created by its own team.”

Now, if you look at the miserable states of so many countries who tried to emulate American style democracy, such as Russia, Philippines, Malaysia, Yugoslavia, etc. Pro-American supporters can argue: “That’s just because the Russians, the Filipinos, the Malaysians, the Yugoslavians did not fully learn all the details of the American system, so their copies of the system were not authentic, they were pirated! So of course they failed!”

But if you look at Iraq. That’s not someone trying to pirate the original version. That’s Americans themselves reproducing their own system, with their own original recipe. That’s a totally authentic version! And Americans want this authentic version to succeed, so they can set an example for the rest of the Middle East.

Yet, is that authentic version succeeding? Of course we know that at least so far, it’s failing massively. So, why is it that the chef’s own original recipe tastes so badly the second time around? Either the Chef is not putting in 100% effort, which is unlikely, or the recipe was not the original, which is also unlikely. Then that leads to the inevitable question, is the original recipe really that good in the first place? And if you go back to the original version, you’ll perhaps realize the original was a bad dish as well!

Therefore, the failure of the American system in Iraq indicates one thing: that is, the American system is not a universally good system, and will not work in many places in the world.

The worshipers of the American system always like to say : “The American system will work regardless of cultural, historical and economic conditions! If you apply this system, you’ll see immediate results, or we’ll refund your money!”. I think the experience in Iraq should make them stop saying that.

Now, you may ask “Math! I know what you are trying to say! You are saying there’s no universally applicable system in the world, and every system is relative to a countries’ own conditions.”

No no no, you misunderstood me, that’s not what I’m trying to say at all. I said the American system is not universally applicable, but I did not say that such a system does not exist.

In fact, I strongly believe a universally good politically system exists and is in practice today. And that is the current system of China.

I think if the PLA occupied Iraq, it’ll also try to create its own original recipe in Iraq. That is, it’ll form the Iraqi Communist Party and creates a democratic centralism in which many political parties exist under the leadership of the Iraqi Communist Party and an Iraqi People’s Congress. This will quickly stabilize the situation in Iraq and leads Iraqi on a path to modernization.

August 6, 2007 @ 7:22 am | Comment

Oh, brother.

As big a disaster as the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has been, Math’s proposed solution is…

Well, I have to admit, it gave me a bit of a chuckle, which considering the gravity of the situation is quite an accomplishment.

August 6, 2007 @ 10:47 am | Comment

Well Raj, if you really believe what you wrote, and if you really want to take America to task for “cowardice”, then you can back it up by enlisting in the British Army. “Your” country is responsible for this mess too, after all.

August 6, 2007 @ 10:48 am | Comment

I really hope some of you can look at Iraq and still say the US “Democracy” will bring peace and wealth to other countries. Math said it exactly right! Look at your monsters and see how ugly they are. Anywhere there is the US, there will be war and disaster. US is basically a hegemon in the world, and it threatens world stability everyday. If you continue to praise the US military action in the world, you should be ashamed.

August 6, 2007 @ 11:53 am | Comment

Iron, I agree the war is a horrific disaster and I’d call it criminal as well. But I hope you don’t think Math’s solution is at all serious or plausible. You’re telling me the PLA could go to Iraq and create “Democratic centralism”?

The only hope Iraq has is for the Iraqi people to work out for themselves what it is they want. The problem is they are having to try and do this in a completely ruined nation that was an artificial construct held together by a succession of strongmen. We are talking about conflicts going back how many hundreds (or is it thousands?) of years that have been pumped up by ambitious men on all sides of the conflict. I don’t see how any occupying army can stabilize the country in the condition that it is now.

It’s a horrific situation, with a range of outcomes from bad to worse, as far as I can tell.

August 6, 2007 @ 1:37 pm | Comment

@ Raj: I understand your position on the need to restore peace and stability in Iraq. But quoting from a News Corporation publication to justify your claim will hardly make your argument more convincing. From where I stand, the end does not justify the means.

@ Iron Blood Soldier: Your war-mongering threat against Taiwan makes you the last person qualified to criticise what the US is doing in Iraq. You also need to brush up on your reading skills, particularly your ability to read Math’s satirical master pieces.

@ Math: It’s a good one, mate. I’m sure the PLA would replicate the original recipe if it occupied Iraq. The Iraqi would be able to enjoy the same sumptuous meals that the PLA dished out for the Tibetans in 1959 and for the demonstrators at the Square in 1989.

August 6, 2007 @ 1:41 pm | Comment

Personally I’d say the Peking duck has a few good points in there. Once you get into a war like this is generally pretty hard to come out without looking like an idiot (though its a little to late for that). The real issue is whether or not a true strategy for finishing things up can be conceived or not.
—
On a side note it looks like Peking Duck needs to add in a meta encoding type so that its not popping in randomly wrong encoded letters (â€). Of course that could just be a result of bad pasting or bad text formats on their side.

August 6, 2007 @ 3:00 pm | Comment

Once the US leaves Iraq, the Saudis and Iranians can slug it out over “areas of control” while the Iraqi Kurds plot with the Iranian and Turkish Kurds to form their own state (or at least try to).

Maybe Bush just said “let’s uncork this genie and let all of the pent up pressure blow off”.

Math, why do you waste so much time to say that you want Beijing to set up Iraq as a CCP colony?

August 6, 2007 @ 3:03 pm | Comment

@ Math: you are amazing.

@ Raj: Differing interpretations aside, Iraq is a fundamental drain on U.S. strength for negligible gain. From a realist viewpoint, staying in Iraq is disastrous and constantly saps American strength in a confict with one pole of a multipolar world. If this was a conflict with the only other major power in the world, then attrition could have relative benefits for American power, but in a bloodletting contest with a socially cohesive but ultimately weaker power (the modern Islamic world) America does not gain.

August 6, 2007 @ 4:04 pm | Comment

I’m all for allowing the PRC to turn Iraq into a Chinese colony. The Shiites just adore materialist atheists who will require the Hidden Imam not to reappear until he gets government approval.

August 6, 2007 @ 5:01 pm | Comment

As an American who actually live in the US and who is also a registered democrat, we need to win this no matter what and no matter how many soliders we lost. Troop increases buy us time, and this war can be won and only be won if we achieve a political solution.

Having said above, however, I don’t think Bush administration is able to do it. Personally, the best thing I can hope for is that we will screw Iraq up so bad, other terrorists will think twice before they pull another 911, because their country maybe next (Saudi Arabians I am talking about you). 🙁

August 6, 2007 @ 5:14 pm | Comment

Okay Arty, if you’re so resolved and determined for “us” to “win this no matter what”, then why the hell haven’t you volunteered to go to Iraq yourself?

Until then, just shut up about the sacrifices you expect others to make.

August 6, 2007 @ 5:27 pm | Comment

Arty,

Yours is the most selfish, self-defeating and ignorant perspective on Iraq that I’ve ever come across. I’m surprised that you have the courage to voice it in public. God helps America – if you’re really an American as you claimed.

August 6, 2007 @ 6:08 pm | Comment

Ivan, I wouldn’t be accepted – I have flat feet. 😀

Besides, I’m not suggesting Americans (or Britons) have to accept the draft because that isn’t a solution. The issue is whether the US forces currently in Iraq have longer to secure increased stability, or they come home ASAP.

August 6, 2007 @ 8:59 pm | Comment

LOL. It reminds me of the arguments the Japanese military was making in the summer of ’45.

I think Glen Greenwald has…um….put the bullshit of o’Hanlon and Pollack to rest in this post.

Slamdunkin’ the warmongers!. You have to read the whole thing, because it tracks their comments from 2003-5. They were not harsh critics of Bush but war cheerleaders and were so throughout the war even as they discovered it was a defeat. The entire piece is one long act of deceit, bullshit from top to bottom.

So the reason we war critics don’t believe is because, well, we don’t believe proven liars and warmongers.

Michael

August 7, 2007 @ 12:14 am | Comment

The major component of the current US military strategy in Iraq involves arming sectarian, tribal based sunni militias which consider AQI worse than the occupation and want to throw them off. Apart from the undecided issue of what they decide to do with their arms once that task’s accomplished, there’s also the fact that these are sectarian militias, not government forces.

Given that the prerequisite for the existence of any peaceful state is a government monopoly of force, the success or otherwise of the military strategy lies in abandoning all hope of Iraq emerging as a stable polity. It’s an admission of strategic defeat at the political level to gain tactical military victory.

August 7, 2007 @ 12:40 am | Comment

Okay Arty, if you’re so resolved and determined for “us” to “win this no matter what”, then why the hell haven’t you volunteered to go to Iraq yourself?

Until then, just shut up about the sacrifices you expect others to make.

Because I didn’t vote for the war, I was strongly against the war at the beginning. I also told them it will be an extremely long and bloody war. I also told them there is no WMD in Iraq because if it does, we won’t invade Iraq. None of them believed me at that time. Most of the US military personels voted for Bush and Republicans, and they better put their lives where their believes laid.

I didn’t voted for Bush. I was not for the war at the beginning. However, I do believe we have to tough it out till the last man standing ; at least last of whom supported or voted for the war at the beginning. If I would go, then the congress men/women and senators who voted for the war should go before me.

Yours is the most selfish, self-defeating and ignorant perspective on Iraq that I’ve ever come across. I’m surprised that you have the courage to voice it in public. God helps America – if you’re really an American as you claimed.

Give me a break, two kinds of person I hate most. Stupid Republicans who voted for the war and flip flapper Democrats who voted for and then against when everything turn south (Clinton cough…cough). Again, most of the US military personels voted for the wars (i.e. voted for Bush). Now it’s time to stand up and pay for it. We either win this war or destory Iraq to a point territorists may think twice before they pull another 911.

August 7, 2007 @ 1:51 am | Comment

@Math

You are just another poor attention seeking troll. You are so ignorant that u don’t even know that the Iraqi Communist Party has existed since the last century and it failed terribly in Iraq. It could not even muster even strength to take power.

The so-called “China model”, how different was it from Saddam’s Baathist regime? They exercised the same degree of brutality except that they used different symbols and slogans.

And Communism would fail in any Islamic countries. Communism, was heretic and evil to the Muslims. Its a “godless” evil system. That’s why even the Soviets failed in trying to prop up its puppet Marxist regime in Afghanistan where the people were fiercely religious.

Math, its time to pick up high sch history and stop embarrassing yourself in full view of all just like the 43rd President of the United States.

August 7, 2007 @ 1:59 pm | Comment

sp: “Math, its time to…stop embarrassing yourself in full view of all just like the 43rd President of the United States.”

But Math is immeasurably more articulate and sensible than the 43d President.

August 7, 2007 @ 3:04 pm | Comment

Yeah, I’d take Math over the Chimp.

August 7, 2007 @ 3:22 pm | Comment

@Ivan

Well, Math may be more articulate and sensible than that Dubya.

But if Math ever occupies the White House, i am certain his potential for damage and destruction is much higher than Dubya.

August 7, 2007 @ 3:24 pm | Comment

The current SPIEGEL also has a long article about the situation in Irak. The report of the two journalists who traveld in Irak for some weeks confirms a lot of the reort above mentioned. That acctually large parts of the country are peacefull at the moment and that locals cooperate with American troops against Qaida. Perhaps not everything is lost.

August 7, 2007 @ 3:28 pm | Comment

Shulan, let’s hope. I despise the war and want troops home. But a part of me accepts the Pottery Barn principle – you break it, you own it. I don’t know what the best way forward is, but the American government certainly owes the Iraqi people, big-time.

I don’t think there are any easy answers or any easy way out. If you want to see what kinds of problems a failed state in Iraq can create, just look at Afghanistan.

If there is ultimately a positive outcome in Iraq, what we need to avoid is triumphalism – that this somehow justifies what the Bush Administration did in the first place.

August 7, 2007 @ 3:48 pm | Comment

no one put it better than Arty
” I also told them there is no WMD in Iraq because if it does, we won’t invade Iraq.”

August 7, 2007 @ 4:57 pm | Comment

Does anyone else see the situation as one of heads I win, tails you lose?

If the situation is dire, we must stay the course or else Al-Qaeda wins! If the situation is good, we must stay the course or else Al-Qaeda wins!

I tend to view the situation as an optimistic catastrophe. Some tangential skirmishes won while the primary situation remains dire. Does anyone doubt that if all U.S. forces withdrew from Iraq tomorrow, the Iraqi government such as it is would collapse soon after?

August 8, 2007 @ 3:32 am | Comment

Well, the situation seems to be turning against AQ, remember that AQ are all foreigners too and the Iraqi military, police and local warlords are all getting tired of AQ killing their people. So AQ is exiting stage left in its first major international failure.

But Iraq will still probably go to pieces as Saudi Arabia and Iran vie for control of their respective tribal alliances and Iraq’s oil.

August 8, 2007 @ 1:27 pm | Comment

Well, the situation seems to be turning against AQ, remember that AQ are all foreigners too and the Iraqi military, police and local warlords are all getting tired of AQ killing their people. So AQ is exiting stage left in its first major international failure.

But Iraq will still probably go to pieces as Saudi Arabia and Iran vie for control of their respective tribal alliances and Iraq’s oil.

It would be interesting to see how Turkey plays into this as their military is good enough to pummel both countries if things get out of hand.

August 8, 2007 @ 1:28 pm | Comment

Ivan, have you not figured out yet how dumb that sounds; “You can’t comment on the war unless you’re enlisted, nyah, nyah!”

OK, you can’t comment on politics unless you’re elected.

And you can’t comment on sanitation unless you’re a garbage man.

And you can’t criticize Math unless you’re willing to go into his classroom and re-educate him.

August 8, 2007 @ 8:55 pm | Comment

Sam,

You can comment on the war, but what I object to is urging others to make sacrifices you’re not personally willing to make.

You have not yet figured out how disgustingly cowardly YOU sound.

August 8, 2007 @ 9:10 pm | Comment

Oh, come on, Ivan, grow up. Cowardly? With your history of aggressive posts, challenging you to be logical is cowardly? So little old ladies can’t support the war? Paraplegics? There’s simply a huge hole in your logic, and you ought to move on to something that makes more sense. You’ve posted enormously valuable insights in the past, and it’s disappointing to see you so attached to this tired old piece of illogic.

August 8, 2007 @ 9:18 pm | Comment

On another topic, before they block it, the Great Wall protest banner-drop has video on youtube.

http://tinyurl.com/2n7rpz

August 8, 2007 @ 9:25 pm | Comment

Sam, the fact that you’re incapable of understanding the most fundamental obligation of citizens of a republic – to be willing either to share in the military sacrifices they expect of fellow citizens, or else to refrain from sending their fellow citizens to war – is a sad – no, stomach-churning – commentary on the moral decay of what was once a great nation.

The reason why you can’t see any “logic” in this is because you – and so many “Americans” like you (whom the founding fathers wouldn’t recognise as their own) – have devolved into a pack of savages who don’t even understand the first thing about civilised life, or about personal honour.

August 8, 2007 @ 10:26 pm | Comment

This simply boggles my mind…

For starter, what’s considered winning? Where the heck is the goal post? Forget the grandiose goals such as creating “democracy” in Middle East or the brain-dead goals such as “fighting terrorists there instead of here”. What’re the concrete measurable goals for the next 12 months?

Yeah, July 2007 saw lower US soldier casualties than the previous months, but so did July 2006 or July 2005 at lower bases. The pace of American soldier causalities, is now eerily similar to the former Soviet Union causalities in Afghanistan. The decade-long occupation severely demoralized and traumatized the former Soviet Union — many blame it as one of the main reasons why the Union collapsed.

If if you ask me, for the best interest of America as a nation, pull the hell out as fast as possible, and replace it with a UN-sanctioned peacekeeping force including but not limited to French, Russians, Egyptians, Saudis, maybe even Iranians. This will require quite a bit humility and diplomatic finesse, but can be done when the Clinton couple go back to the White House.

August 9, 2007 @ 12:13 am | Comment

The reason why you can’t see any “logic” in this is because you – and so many “Americans” like you (whom the founding fathers wouldn’t recognise as their own) – have devolved into a pack of savages who don’t even understand the first thing about civilised life, or about personal honour.

Ivan, would you mind to be my slaves. I think you greatly mis-understood what are founding father actually believed in and actually did. For example, Thomas Jefferson said owning slaves is not moral, yet he is the largest slave owner. He also believed whites are far more superior than blacks (I wonder what he tought of Asians). Yet, he also said every one has inalienable rights (I wonder he actaully meant every white men). During the civil war, if you are rich, you don’t have to be drafted. You can simply buy someone to go to get killed instead of you. I think you, Ivan, are the slave that I am talking about.

Btw, just because I don’t carry a gun and shoot people in Iraq, does not mean I don’t contribute to the war. I pay my taxes. Although, I am not developing weapons, but I worked two blocks from General Atomics. How do you know what I am working on won’t be weaponized (I hope not). I think the people who developed atomic bombs in the US contribute quite a bit to WWII, don’t you think.

August 9, 2007 @ 1:11 am | Comment

Ivan, you don’t know whether I’m a 60-year old grandpa or a 14-year old girl. You certainly don’t know my military background or what level of sacrifice I make. Yet I’m in a pack of savages! (Along with savage ol’ Raj, I suppose.) That’s truly wierd.

It’s driveling, logic-impaired blowhards with a blinding agenda who screw up perfectly reasonable threads like the one Raj started! Some level-headed discourse might actually get somewhere with the grownups, and I think you’re capable of it. If I’m not mistaken, he’s not one of the big war-supporters here. You ought to give a listen to what he actually has to say, rather than just ranting. And honestly man, that old “Serve or shut up” ain’t gonna work. I doubt that you even believe it, but it sure makes a handy cudgel when you’ve run out of logical argument.

Go ahead and have the last word….I don’t think this one is going anywhere.

August 9, 2007 @ 2:01 am | Comment

Sam, I do think there is an issue here – and I’m not talking about you or anyone else on this board.

The architects of this war in the White House, its biggest cheerleaders in academia, think tanks and the media, its strongest supporters in Congress – hardly any of them have had any military service. Most of their children aren’t serving either.

I don’t believe that you have to have been in the military to comment on the war or even to support the war. But this wholesale lack of both experience and empathy, the casual disregard for the consequences, this attitude that someone else’s kids can go fight – it’s morally repugnant.

And let’s not forget how the vast majority of Arabists in the US warned that this would be a disaster, and how little anyone planning this war listened to them.

August 9, 2007 @ 3:18 am | Comment

Raj, something like 800,000 Iraqis are dead, 2.2 million are refuges, 2 million have fled their homes within the country, 32% of the internally displaced have no access to food rations, 28% of children are malnourished, 92% of children have trauma-induced learning difficulties, 70% of the country lacks adequate water supplies, 80% lack effective sanitation, electricity supplies in Baghdad and other cities have fallen even further to two hours a day…. All of these figures have got worse, not better.

Could you please tell me what your definition of a catastrophe is? As for predicting the success or failure of the “surge”, history tends to help.

August 9, 2007 @ 7:36 am | Comment

Baghdad has had no running water for 9 days…

August 9, 2007 @ 8:06 am | Comment

Of course there’s a point there, Lisa. But none of them really addresses Raj’s very legitimate questions: especially the one about the US’s moral obligation to try to straighten out the mess they made, and how it might best be done. But I give up on having reasoned discussion about it *here*.

Over and out.

August 9, 2007 @ 12:13 pm | Comment

Sam, if you look at my comments up-thread, I reluctantly subscribe to the “Pottery Barn” principle – you break it, you own it. But I really don’t know what the best way to try and fix this horrific mess is. I just know that the Administration is so fundamentally dishonest about everything they do that any talk coming from them about the Surge succeeding I take with more than a grain of salt.

I think also that a part of what I react to in any discussion of this is that if these people think they’ve accomplished something, even at such a staggering cost, they will use it as an excuse to try again (e.g., Iraq). I know that what’s done is done and that we have to move forward from where we find ourselves now – and I hope for the sake of the Iraqi people that somehow we will find a way forward. But under no circumstances can such a tainted “success” be used to justify this war. It was wrong from the beginning. And you know that they will use any “success” to try it again.

August 9, 2007 @ 2:12 pm | Comment

Sorry. the “e.g., Iraq” should read “e.g. Iran.”

August 9, 2007 @ 2:13 pm | Comment

For the record, so I won’t be taken for a silent troll. I supported the war. Likewise, since it is has obviously been badly managed, I subscribe to otherlisa’s Pottery Barn simile. We botched it, we should do our level best to clean it up before we pull out. And yes, I’m a warmonger. We botched the job the first time, during Desert Storm, when we failed to take advantage of all those surrendering Iraqi units and turn them around to have entered Baghdad as fellow coalition allies. I am aware of the reasons we did not do so, generally based upon a “nest of scorpions” view that said: now matter who we put in power, it will turn out badly. I was bitterly disappointed with our approach to this second round, whereby we did not reduce Tikrit and the main towns of the Sunni triangle to a moonscape littered with corpses. When Germany and Japan surrendered, they had suffered enough to know what the alternative was. In Desert Storm Redux, we allowed ourselves the illusion that only Saddam and his clique were the bad guys. Everyone else was “good”. And instead of Arabists, we listened to Iraqi Arabs who had their own agendas. (Shades of George Washington’s warning against entangling foreign alliances). I still wonder why we are committed to the legal fiction of a state set up by the British in the wake of WWI. Division of this living corpse should not be off the agenda. We broke it, we should have the guts (and monetary committment) to fix it (or the resulting component parts) as best we can. Cutting and running is the lesser desirable option. As for Iran, if war with Iran is necessary to leave a viable Iraq (or former Iraqi states), then lets have the guts to hammer them into oblivion by going in hard, fast, and heavy, before we hold out the olive branch to the survivors, even if it means reinstituting the draft. Of course, that should require a declaration of war, something that would force both the Congress and the President to review certain provisions of the U.S. constitution that have apparently slipped into oblivion.

Sign me “just a savage”, but one who has pulled the trigger, tossed grenades, and called in artillery, airstrikes, and naval gunfire on his country’s enemies, some of whom are now my in-laws.

August 9, 2007 @ 4:09 pm | Comment

I never supported this occupation, but I now reluctantly think that America has won the war in Iraq. This is not so much due to the “surge” but is due to the Americans finally learning the basic principles of empire building, including divide-and-conquer, paying off local potentates and recruiting native armies to do the bulk of the fighting. The surge will have to be maintained until around the end of 2008, but after then Iraqi security forces can take over the role of imposing the Pax Americana, with a relatively small American garrison held in reserve. Iraq is America’s colony now – I just hope America knows what she’s got herself in for.

August 9, 2007 @ 4:55 pm | Comment

I always appreciate your comments, Lirelou. The problem here is we were sold a bill of goods, a promise that we would be treated as liberators and handed flowers and chocolates from the grateful populace. I understand your philosophy about turning the Sunni triangle into a moonscape in Sherman’s scorched-earth tradition. And sometimes there’s a time for that, like WWII. But to do that to a people who posed no threat to US security and who did not attack us…well, that would be an utter horror. We could have flattened Vietnam, too, but then all the sacrifice would look kind of pointless, don’t you think? And considering the intensity of this ethnic conflict, I’m not sure scorched earth would win. Not when you have so many fanatics who will joyfully blow themselves up in the name their god. Fear works on those who are determined to live, but is probably far less effective on those who consider dying for their cause an honor and a privilege.

And now, back to work…

August 9, 2007 @ 7:24 pm | Comment

In other words, Lirelou, you support genocide. And Richard, the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of civilians in each of the cities whose incineration you support did not bring victory in World War II, and can never be justified.

August 9, 2007 @ 7:51 pm | Comment

As far as I can see, people use the ‘Pottery Barn metaphor’ to mean the opposite of what it should mean.

Imagine you’re in a store with a ‘you break it, you own it’ policy. You accidentally knock a pottery vase off the shelf and break it. You now ‘own’ the vase only in the sense that you must immediately and unconditionally pay the full retail price as compensation.

So the Pottery Barn metaphor shouldn’t be used to mean that the US has an obligation to stay in Iraq and rebuild it. It should mean that the US has an obligation to compensate the Iraqis for everything they have destroyed and everyone they have killed, without attaching any conditions or trying to dictate how the money is used.

August 9, 2007 @ 8:48 pm | Comment

Try dealing with the specific points I — and others — have already raised. Kristol, O’Hanlon and Pollack aren’t “anyone.” They are specific people with zero credibility on the war and the surge. Also, most of the reports and evidence regarding the war and the surge have been overwhelmingly negative. Seizing on what two war/surge supporters say out of that sea of evidence and touting it as proof that things are working might be called “cherry-picking.” It’s not like the Bush administration has a history of that.

Word.

August 9, 2007 @ 9:16 pm | Comment

Thank goodness for JXie
I can’t believe this conversation is even happening. Raj, I’m sorry, but you’re a gimp, and for this specific reason: there is no winning/losing in Iraq now. The US is not at war with Iraq any more, that finished ages ago. Your suggestion that “we can win” is so disingenuous as to be criminal. The coalition did win. Baath was removed, Saddam is dead. It’s not about defeating an enemy. It’s about the fact that the US (and UK) fucked the country right up.
So what are you talking about? I can only guess what “win” means to you, but I fear it means “turn Iraq into an obedient vassal state where Americans are welcome.” And you’re just going to have to accept that an awful lot of people in the world don’t see that as a positive outcome.
Perhaps I’m being too cynical here. I’m sure you’re a nice guy, and you probably mean “establish a reasonable level of peace and security in a democratic Iraq.” That is a decent aim. I just fear that you’re giving your(? are you American?) government a little too much credit. As with Palestine, democracy will only be accepted within certain limits.
And finally, if the US does everything right from now on, establishes peace, gets out, allows Iraq to trade oil in whatever currency it wants (pays for the oil it stole…), here’s the rub: this was still a disastrous adventure by a colonialist yahoo president. It’s a permanent black mark. There is no way to fix the Iraqi families that have already been ripped apart. It was wrong, and the very best the US & UK can do is leave with our tails between our legs, having provided the Iraqi government with the infrastructure and wherewithal to maintain peace.
This thread should be called: We could get it right from now on.

August 9, 2007 @ 11:38 pm | Comment

Phil, you’re right.

cat wrote: “the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of civilians in each of the cities whose incineration you support did not bring victory in World War II, and can never be justified”

I feel the firebombing of Dresden and Hamburg and Tokyo, not to mention the two atomic bombs, were tragic and to a large extent unnecessary. But that is always the horror of war – the slaughter of innocents. Germany and Japan wanted war, and war they got. WWII was not a justified war; it was a just war – we had to fight it, there was no choice, and at the time there were rationalizations for the aforementioned carnage. So while I don’t condone it I understand it. When it comes to Iraq, when I see all the carnage, all the misery caused by this unjust and unjustified war I can only shake my head in numbed disbelief. It can’t possibly be true that America created this mess. And yet here was are, and it’s true. The awful deaths of civilians in WWII are understandable to me, especially considering the aggressions of our enemies then. But Iraq, a country that posed no danger to us… well, I can’t go on. It just makes me sick.

August 10, 2007 @ 1:19 am | Comment

In other words, Lirelou, you support genocide. And Richard, the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of civilians in each of the cities whose incineration you support did not bring victory in World War II, and can never be justified.

Dresdon was stupidity and cruelty. But as for the A-bombs and Tokyo, it fascinates me that the US Left has picked up and incorporated the propaganda of the Japanese Right into its assessments of the A-bomb use. The longstanding program of the Japanese Right in using humanitarians to discredit the US victory — laid out in September of ’45 in diplomatic communications that are preserved in B. Lee’s _Marching Orders_ — has largely been a success, at least among the Left, and those who know nothing about the war.

I wrote a detailed refutation of the revisionist/Japanese Right position for a debate an Infidels a while back. It’s on my blog at:

Hiroshima time again.

Yes, it does truly suck that a couple of hundred thousand people had to be incinerated in order to get the emperor’s attention and end the war. But those deaths saved millions of lives.

I suggest, cat, you take a gander at Frank’s excellent refutation of the revisionist position in _Downfall_. The fact is that the revisionist position is historically unsupportable, racist, and deeply unethical.

Michael

Michael

August 10, 2007 @ 11:25 am | Comment

@Jxie

“…including but not limited to French, Russians, Egyptians, Saudis, maybe even Iranians.”

Not limited to? I see you’re already eyeing up the oil for your buddies over at CCPHQ. I’m sure they’re all rubbing their hands with glee at the current debacle and the prospect of moving in and taking the spoils of disaster for themselves.

Problem is, America won’t countenance a sizeable Chinese presence in the region. And nor should it.

August 10, 2007 @ 11:28 am | Comment

Cat, I understand the moral tone of your argument, but you need to look up the definition of genocide. As for the slaughter of civilians, those Allied decisions in WWII were not made in a vacuum. People were dying by the tens of thousands on a daily basis, so the only real question was: Would this (whatever) operation bring a speedier end to the war? Until the enemy surrendered, Allied commanders principal obligations were to their own.
Richard: Dresden can be argued, but I prefer to remember that thousands of Jews (and other European “undesirables”) were being shuffled into the ovens at the time the decision to bomb it was made. If you review either the U.S. or RAF casualty figures for Europe, you’ll note that being a bomber crew member in those days was a high risk occupation.

Of course, the nature of war is that bad decisions are made (Market Garden, anyone?). How ironic that today the President inveils against Iraq for providing explosives to the Iraqi insurgents, when we provided shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles to the Afghan mujahadin for use against the Soviets.

It appears that in contrast to a declared war, which serves as an extension of politics, this undeclared war has placed us in the unenviable position of seeing politics and policy which have been crafted to address the war.

August 10, 2007 @ 1:33 pm | Comment

Small, very minor point:
@stuart: The Chinese are already in Iraq. I know because I taught English to some of the oil workers in question. That was only in the last Northern Hemisphere academic year, i.e. only a few months ago. Just so you know, although it’s even more off topic, I also taught oil workers who had been in, are now in, or are on their way to Pakistan, Iran and Sudan.

August 10, 2007 @ 4:27 pm | Comment

Stuart, from your binary, poorly informed small world of yours, not surprisingly you came up with that 2 bits of garbage as usual.

Chriswaugh_bj is exactly right; the current Iraqi government has already revived Saddam-era oil contracts with the Chinese oil companies. Read some news once in a while, will you? But that’s not the point, my friend. China, like the US or France, unlike Russia or Saudi Arab, is an oil net importer. Oil is a fungible commodity. What that means is, regardless who is controlling the tap in Iraq and where the oil is pumped to, so long as the oil production there rises, the worldwide oil supply will increase, and it will be a net price depressing factor — oil importers will benefit.

The problem is, the non-UN-sanctioned US/UK military present itself is perceived by a large number of Iraqis and Arab nations (likely the overwhelming majority of them) as a sign of neo-colonialism, and solicits resentment to outright hatred. I have no illusion that a UN peacekeeping force will be anything remotely close to the military competency of the current occupation force — but the UN banner takes that grievance away. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to imagine that soon there will be far less daily bombing, Iraqis’ lives will improve and the oil production will rise.

August 10, 2007 @ 5:06 pm | Comment

“Stuart, from your binary, poorly informed small world of yours, not surprisingly you came up with that 2 bits of garbage as usual.”

Maybe, just maybe, from that sub-binary perspective of yours, you failed to understand what I meant by ‘a sizeable Chinese presence.’

Having read your and cw’s comments, a line from the Black Adder series seems appropriate: “To you, JXie, the renaissance was just something that happened to other people.”

You read my short post with prejudice and missed the point. How very, very CCP.

August 11, 2007 @ 12:21 am | Comment

Lirelou, on the issue of genocide, first let’s remind ourselves of what you said:

“I was bitterly disappointed with our approach to this second round, whereby we did not reduce Tikrit and the main towns of the Sunni triangle to a moonscape littered with corpses.”

I know that the phrase “littered with corpses” does not specify what percentage of the population of those cities should be killed. My assumption that you mean a large percentage of the population in those cities could be wrong. If it is wrong you can correct me and say more specifically what sort of percentage you feel would have been justified.

If my assumption is correct, how many people are we talking about? Various figures for the populations of many Iraqi cities differ wildly. But we are talking about something in the rough ballpark of a million people. I’m not saying that is the exact figure. Just that it is in that order of magnitude. It would be fairly useless to give prior warning that you intend to totally destroy these cities and kill everyone in them because if you did, the people you were really trying to kill would simply go somewhere else. So I imagine that you mean this would be without warning. Again, if I am wrong, you can correct me.

What proportion of the population in these cities would you accept as a necessary sacrifice to the greater good. Fifty percent? Seventy percent? Less? More? You are targeting a specific ethno-religious group and calling for mass murder of a significant proportion of that group.

Now let’s get down to my definition of genocide. The definition I use is the one laid down in international law by the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/p_genoci.htm

Article Two of that convention defines genocide as:

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Article One says that this applies both in times of peace and in times of war.

So, if you mean what I think you mean, you would appear to be calling for genocide as defined by international law. Incidentally, incitement to genocide is banned by Article Three of the convention. If you actually mean the killing of a much smaller proportion of the population, while deliberately creating up to a million refugees – in that case you are merely promoting a war crime.

Richard and Michael, we all seem to agree essentially on many things about the Iraq war. I’ll come back to the disagreements that we have expressed in this thread later.

August 11, 2007 @ 2:56 am | Comment

Richard, thanks for pointing out the differences between WWII and the war in Iraq. You are absolutely correct about the WWII being a “just war”.

Michael, I’m not at all surprised that this thread will end up with some Japanese revisionists trying to derail the discussion. At some other anti-War American forums, a handful of vocal Nazi apologists also attempted to hijack the floor. I know from start that the neo-con’s pathetic attempt to compare Sadam with Hitler will back fire badly one day.

August 11, 2007 @ 10:48 am | Comment

The word revisionist is not very helpful here and was rejected by Richard B. Frank.

It’s a rather dishonest tool used to discredit opposing views, because of its overwhelming association with the denial of crimes against humanity like the Holocaust and the Nanjing massacre, and with those who try to justify the German and Japanese invasions in Europe and Asia.

But it is also factually wrong. There were many people within the US military and government, as well as scientists who created the bomb who opposed its actual use. Developing nuclear weapons at a time when the Nazis were believed to be doing the same was one thing. Deliberate first use of these weapons was something very different. A number of people expressed their strong opposition both before the bombs were dropped and immediately afterwards. Many Manhattan Project scientists protested to Truman and Congress after the bombs were dropped. One of them is a friend of mine, and I can assure you she is not a Japanese revisionist. It was impossible for any of these people to be influenced by Japanese revisionists, because there was nothing to revise – they were criticizing the present, not the past.

Some have argued that the use of nuclear weapons was already illegal under the Hague Conventions and the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which banned the use of chemical and biological weapons – two of the three types of weapon that are now referred to as weapons of mass destruction. The protocol did not ban nuclear weapons because nuclear weapons did not exist in 1925. On technical grounds, I don’t think this argument works. But the use of nuclear weapons is clearly against the spirit of the treaty.

Under the laws of warfare in 1945, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki may perhaps have been legal. The same goes for the fire bombing of cities like Dresden and Tokyo. Under present law all of these would be certainly be war crimes. The1977 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions expressly banned this kind of indiscriminate attack. http://tinyurl.com/393sha

There was a good reason for this ban – throughout the 20th century civilians had made up an ever increasing proportion of the dead. In WWI, 10% of the dead were civilians. In WWII, it was 50%. In the Vietnam War, it was 70%.

The Geneva Conventions did not exist during WWII, so they cannot be applied to actions at that time in any legal sense. But if you argue that those actions were right then, you would also have to explain why they are wrong now and why the Geneva Conventions should not be scrapped.

On the just war argument, almost all wars are considered just at the time that they are being waged – at least they are considered just by those who support them. Later, people look back and decide that one war was just, while another was not. WWI was considered just for much of the time it was being fought and those who opposed it were called traitors. Later, that assessment was almost completely reversed. WWII, on the other hand, is still seen as just and I agree with that assessment. But who decides on that justness at the time of the war and how do they decide it? And what criteria do we use to decide that a present war will ultimately be judged as just enough to justify the mass slaughter of civilians?

If you argue that a just war justifies the incineration of cities with nuclear weapons and firebombs, you should also agree that a just war justifies many other things too – the use of torture, for example. The end justifies the means. If that is true, we may as well give up on all UN conventions and treaties and agree to live by the law of the jungle.

August 12, 2007 @ 5:14 pm | Comment

It’s a rather dishonest tool used to discredit opposing views, because of its overwhelming association with the denial of crimes against humanity like the Holocaust and the Nanjing massacre, and with those who try to justify the German and Japanese invasions in Europe and Asia.

That’s right. The term revisionist is associated with right-wing positions — like the position that the A-Bomb didn’t end the war, a right-wing Japanese position

But it is also factually wrong. There were many people within the US military and government, as well as scientists who created the bomb who opposed its actual use.

Just as there were many people who supported its use. The issue with a word like “revisionism” is not what people at the time thought, but whether the A-bomb ended the war. The revisionist position is that it didn’t.

Developing nuclear weapons at a time when the Nazis were believed to be doing the same was one thing. Deliberate first use of these weapons was something very different. A number of people expressed their strong opposition both before the bombs were dropped and immediately afterwards. Many Manhattan Project scientists protested to Truman and Congress after the bombs were dropped. One of them is a friend of mine, and I can assure you she is not a Japanese revisionist. It was impossible for any of these people to be influenced by Japanese revisionists, because there was nothing to revise – they were criticizing the present, not the past.

None of these scientists, as Frank point out, knew a thing about warfare. Also, as your friend might know, a petition supporting use of the Bomb also circulated in the scientific community.

And again, we are not talking about opposition at the time to the use of the Bomb. The term “revisionism” describes the opposition to the received position on whether the Bombs ended the war. You are confused about what is at issue.

Some have argued that the use of nuclear weapons was already illegal under the Hague Conventions and the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which banned the use of chemical and biological weapons – two of the three types of weapon that are now referred to as weapons of mass destruction. The protocol did not ban nuclear weapons because nuclear weapons did not exist in 1925. On technical grounds, I don’t think this argument works. But the use of nuclear weapons is clearly against the spirit of the treaty.

I agree, but the issue of mass destruction of cities had already been clearly settled by both sides — by Japanese in firebombing Chinese cities, for example. Both sides had implicitly agreed that wholesale destruction of cities was acceptable.

Under the laws of warfare in 1945, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki may perhaps have been legal. The same goes for the fire bombing of cities like Dresden and Tokyo. Under present law all of these would be certainly be war crimes. The1977 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions expressly banned this kind of indiscriminate attack. http://tinyurl.com/393sha

Yes, but all this has absolutely nothing to do with the historically indefensible, racist, and ethically objectionable nature of your position. It may or may not have been a war crime — that is of no account. What is most ethically urgent is that it saved millions of lives.

The Geneva Conventions did not exist during WWII, so they cannot be applied to actions at that time in any legal sense. But if you argue that those actions were right then, you would also have to explain why they are wrong now and why the Geneva Conventions should not be scrapped.

This is also irrelevant to anything we have been discussing.

do they decide it? And what criteria do we use to decide that a present war will ultimately be judged as just enough to justify the mass slaughter of civilians?

Cat, you haven’t addressed any of the issues. I have never claimed that WWII was just or that dropping the A-Bombs was ethically right. It was an ethically wrong act that was necessary to prevent even greater moral horrors. Like the death by starvation of millions of Japanese, and millions of others throughout Asia (in China, where war continued, millions starved).

If you argue that a just war justifies the incineration of cities with nuclear weapons and firebombs, you should also agree that a just war justifies many other things too – the use of torture, for example.

But I never said anything about a just war. So all this is moot. I have said your position is:

(a) historically indefensible — Japan was never going to surrender, had no plans to surrender, and many local commanders would have paid no attention even if they had been given orders to do so.

(b) racist — it pits Japanese lives against American lives, entirely eliminating Chinese, Thai, indonesian, filipino, and other lives from the equation. It offers a construction of a feminized and passive Japan that could do nothing about its own fate, mercilessly bombed by the cruel US. That is a political construction, not a historical analysis.

(c) ethically indefensible — it is immoral to support a position that argues that the war should have gone for weeks, months, years, with more and more killing.

Please note that there is nothing about a just war or the UN or Geneva Conventions in anything that I wrote.

Michael

August 12, 2007 @ 6:00 pm | Comment

Michael. I know you didn’t bring up the just war issue. I was not responding to you on that point. Read the rest of the thread.

I disagree with most of your reply, but I won’t carry the argument on. It’s not as important to me as it is to you. I’m actually more interested in what is being done and may be done now – those are the things we are actually able to influence. In immediate terms that means Iraq, and possibly Iran.

What was done was done. It cannot be undone. What is happening now – that is what we can change in some small way.

I will ask you one question, though. Provisional plans were made to drop about eight or nine more atomic bombs on Japanese cities. How many of these would have been justified? All of them? Some of them? At what point would the mathematical calculations dictate that too many Japanese civilians had died? And do you really believe that the decision to drop the bomb was for the sake of non-American lives? And do you think similar things should be done again in a future war – as they were done, in a different way, in Vietnam?

August 12, 2007 @ 8:37 pm | Comment

I disagree with most of your reply, but I won’t carry the argument on. It’s not as important to me as it is to you.

LOL. You were the one who told Lirelou s/he supported genocide and Richard that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki can never be justified.

Yes, it is more important to me than to you — you decided to engage in cheap grandstanding and then run away. On the other hand, it was so important to me that I went out and researched the topic quite thoroughly, reading the arguments and data on all sides. Have you?

I will ask you one question, though. Provisional plans were made to drop about eight or nine more atomic bombs on Japanese cities. How many of these would have been justified? All of them?

I’m sorry. We’re talking about different things here. I’m talking about A-Bomb revisionism and its claim that the Bomb did not in fact end the war, but that the US cruelly dropped the Bomb on even though Japan was “trying” to surrender.

I do not know how many of a provisional or hypothetical future bombings of Japanese cities would have been justified or what would have justified them. Probably, if in the midst of a murderous invasion that was killing millions, if they had ended the war immediately, they would most certainly had been justified. But to permit the war to go on for another six months — that would have been a travesty. And that is the position you are calling for. How many dead allied men and women are 100,000 Japanese civilians worth?

Some of them? At what point would the mathematical calculations dictate that too many Japanese civilians had died? And do you really believe that the decision to drop the bomb was for the sake of non-American lives?

Of course not! But they were still saved by it, nonetheless. The fact that those lives saved are not considered a success of the Bomb in A-Bomb revisionism shows its roots in right-wing racist Japanese thinking. The decision to drop the Bombs on cities was the right decision even though the decisionmakers did not justify it in the same robust way we might today. In hindsight, they made the correct decision.

And do you think similar things should be done again in a future war – as they were done, in a different way, in Vietnam?

Your loaded question contains a fact that you have not yet established — namely, that the tactics used in Vietnam and Hiroshima/Nagasaki were the same thing. They weren’t. The former was a criminal war conducted on behalf of a failed government that spun out of control both at home and in the theatre of war, the latter, two attacks on cities that ended the bloodiest war in history and saved millions of lives. No comparison at all.

Michael

August 12, 2007 @ 11:05 pm | Comment

Michael, we appear to agree that the Vietnam war was wrong. We also appear to agree that the war in Iraq is wrong. We also agree that the war against fascist aggression needed to be fought.

We disagree on the rightness of one of the methods used in the second world war – the deliberate slaughter of civilians.

I stand by my use of the word genocide for any proposed obliteration of all the cities within the Sunni triangle in Iraq – along with a million or so inhabitants. I gave my reasons for that.

We now seem to have reached the argument that you said you were not making – that a just war justifies the slaughter of civilians, whereas an unjust war does not.

But who decides on that rightness? You might think that Vietnam was wrong. I might think it was wrong. The people in charge don’t seem to have thought so. A big part of their decision making process would have been the “national interest,” but I assume that they persuaded themselves of the rightness of what they were doing. Why should they have held back when they believed they were doing the right thing?

We can look back and say in hindsight – that this was right, that was wrong. But what will we do now? What will we do in the future? That is why someone calling for the mass murder of civilians now is vastly more important to me than the mass murder of civilians 62 years ago. That is why I said – very clumsily and I admit quite offensively that “it” is not as important….etc. It is important to me, but the overriding importance is how that affects the decisions we allow our leaders/representatives to make in the future.

What I really want to know now is what you think should be allowed and not allowed in war now?

August 13, 2007 @ 2:00 am | Comment

It’s great the surge is going well, but if the Iraqi lawmakers don’t get off their butt and do something it’s just a waste. I especially like the last two paragraphs of Thomas Friedman’s oped.

Help Wanted: Peacemaker by Thomas L. Friedman

July 18, 2007
OP-ED COLUMNIST; Help Wanted: Peacemaker
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

I can’t imagine how I’d feel if I were the parent of a soldier in Iraq and I had just read that the Iraqi Parliament had decided to go on vacation for August, because, as the White House spokesman, Tony Snow, explained, it’s really hot in Baghdad then — ”130 degrees.”

I’ve been in Baghdad in the summer and it is really hot. But you know what? It is a lot hotter when you’re in a U.S. military uniform, carrying a rifle and a backpack, sweltering under a steel helmet and worrying that a bomb can be thrown at you from any direction. One soldier told me he lost six pounds in one day. I’m sure the Iraqi Parliament is air-conditioned.

So let’s get this straight: Iraqi parliamentarians, at least those not already boycotting the Parliament, will be on vacation in August so they can be cool, while young American men and women, and Iraqi Army soldiers, will be fighting in the heat in order to create a proper security environment in which Iraqi politicians can come back in September and continue squabbling while their country burns.

Here is what I think of that: I think it’s a travesty — and for the Bush White House to excuse it with a Baghdad weather report shows just how much it has become a hostage to Iraq.

The administration constantly says the surge is necessary, but not sufficient. That’s right. There has to be a political deal. And the latest report card on Iraq showed that a deal is nowhere near completion. So where is the diplomatic surge? What are we waiting for? A cool day in December?

When you read stories in the newspapers every day about Americans who are going to Iraq for their third or even fourth tours and you think that this administration has never sent its best diplomats for even one tour yet — never made one, not one, single serious, big-time, big-tent diplomatic push to resolve this conflict, but instead has put everything on the military, it makes you sick.

Yes, yes, I know, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is going to make one of her quick-in-and-out trips to the Middle East next month to try to enlist support for an Israeli-Palestinian peace conference in the fall. I’m all for Arab-Israeli negotiations, but the place that really needs a peace conference right now is Iraq, and it won’t happen with drive-by diplomacy.

President Bush baffles me. If your whole legacy was riding on Iraq, what would you do? I’d draft the country’s best negotiators — Henry Kissinger, Jim Baker, George Shultz, George Mitchell, Dennis Ross or Richard Holbrooke — and ask one or all of them to go to Baghdad, under a U.N. mandate, with the following orders:

”I want you to move to the Green Zone, meet with the Iraqi factions and do not come home until you’ve reached one of three conclusions: 1) You have resolved the power- and oil-sharing issues holding up political reconciliation; 2) you have concluded that those obstacles are insurmountable and have sold the Iraqis on a partition plan that could be presented to the U.N. and supervised by an international force; 3) you have concluded that Iraqis are incapable of agreeing on either political reconciliation or a partition plan and told them that, as a result, the U.S. has no choice but to re-deploy its troops to the border and let Iraqis sort this out on their own.”

The last point is crucial. Any lawyer will tell you, if you’re negotiating a contract and the other side thinks you’ll never walk away, you’ve got no leverage. And in Iraq, we’ve never had any leverage. The Iraqis believe that Mr. Bush will never walk away, so they have no incentive to make painful compromises.

That’s why the Iraqi Parliament is on vacation in August and our soldiers are fighting in the heat. Something is wrong with this picture. First, Mr. Bush spends three years denying the reality that we need a surge of more troops to establish security and then, with Iraq spinning totally out of control and militias taking root everywhere, he announces a surge and criticizes others for being impatient.

At the same time, Mr. Bush announces a peace conference for Israelis and Palestinians — but not for Iraqis. He’s like a man trapped in a burning house who calls 911 to put out the brush fire down the street. Hello?

Quitting Iraq would be morally and strategically devastating. But to just drag out the surge, with no road map for a political endgame, with Iraqi lawmakers going on vacation, with no consequences for dithering, would be just as morally and strategically irresponsible.

We owe Iraqis our best military — and diplomatic effort — to avoid the disaster of walking away. But if they won’t take advantage of that, we owe our soldiers a ticket home.

August 13, 2007 @ 2:26 am | Comment

Ray

Agree with you/Friedman 100%. If the Iraqi politicians refuse to co-operate and want to have a good punch-up instead, there’s not a lot anyone can do about that.

Maybe that’s not the Iraqi people’s fault, but the US can’t change much if the Iraqis don’t want to compromise with each other.

Personally I think that the US won’t stay past the end of 2008 if the political situation doesn’t improve.

August 13, 2007 @ 5:05 am | Comment

Raj —

Glenn Greenwald has interviewed O’Hanlon and thoroughly demonstrated that the Op-Ed is a fraud.

See this.

August 13, 2007 @ 9:53 am | Comment

We disagree on the rightness of one of the methods used in the second world war – the deliberate slaughter of civilians.

OK. So how would you have ended the war on Aug 15, 1945, without killing any more civilians? A “test drop” obviously would not have worked, since the Japanese did not surrender after we had obliterated a city. So produce a credible alternative scenario that ends the war on the same day, without the Bomb.

I stand by my use of the word genocide for any proposed obliteration of all the cities within the Sunni triangle in Iraq – along with a million or so inhabitants. I gave my reasons for that.We now seem to have reached the argument that you said you were not making – that a just war justifies the slaughter of civilians, whereas an unjust war does not.

No, I am arguing that in war the only just thing one can do is terminate it with as low a loss of life as possible. The fact that a war is “just” does not legitimate particular tactical decisions. What legitimated the Allied responses was the fact that the Axis had begun the war.

What I really want to know now is what you think should be allowed and not allowed in war now?

For the perp, nothing is allowed so the question is moot. For the victim of the invader, everything is legal so the point is moot. When someone invades your house, you don’t stop to ask if it is OK to kick them in the nuts. Once someone invades you, every part of their nation becomes fair game, by any means necessary. The question of using particular weapons then becomes a political and strategic one — in WWII both sides refrained from using gas out of fear, not moral restraints.

Given the situation in Iraq, if the Iraqis obtain a nuke, would they be justified in wiping out NY? My answer would: of course. But whether it is wise politically and strategically to do so is another question. What do you think?

Michael

August 13, 2007 @ 10:05 am | Comment

Cat, “sunni triangle” is a geographical shorthand for Saddam’s base area. Arabs and Sunnis live outside the Sunni Triangle, as well as outside Iraq. A campaign aimed at Saddam’s base would hardly have qualified as “genocide”. As for “obliteration”, you’d be surprised how reasonable people can get when that is their alternative. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the proof.

Michael. Good responses, but we obviously disagree about Vietnam. I would agree with both you and Cat that it was wrong from a constitutional perspective, as it should never have been fought by draftees, as no declaration of war was ever made (or possible) by their elected representatives. The President did have the power to mount an advisory effort and employ regular ground, naval, and air forces for specific contingencies.

We all agree that fascist aggression should have been opposed. I’d add communist agression to that list.

August 13, 2007 @ 10:09 am | Comment

Aargh…again, with the right attributions:

We disagree on the rightness of one of the methods used in the second world war – the deliberate slaughter of civilians.

OK. So how would you have ended the war on Aug 15, 1945, without killing any more civilians? A “test drop” obviously would not have worked, since the Japanese did not surrender after we had obliterated a city. So produce a credible alternative scenario that ends the war on the same day, without the Bomb.

And those civilians you don’t want to harm produce harmful objects that kill ones own troops. How are you justified in choosing enemy lives over your own?

I stand by my use of the word genocide for any proposed obliteration of all the cities within the Sunni triangle in Iraq – along with a million or so inhabitants. I gave my reasons for that.

I agree with you! It was not your conclusion I was disputing, cat.

We now seem to have reached the argument that you said you were not making – that a just war justifies the slaughter of civilians, whereas an unjust war does not.

No, I am arguing that in war the only “just” thing one can do is terminate it with as low a loss of life as possible. The fact that a war is “just” does not legitimate particular tactical decisions. What legitimated the Allied responses was the fact that the Axis had begun the war. WWII was not a “just” war — there is no thing as “just” war, that’s a Christian principle and I reject that utterly, since it legitimates all sorts of things I don’t feel are just.

What I really want to know now is what you think should be allowed and not allowed in war now?

For the perp, nothing is allowed so the question is moot. Every act the perp takes is illegal until the war is ended. For the victim of the invader, everything is legal so the point is moot. When someone invades your house, you don’t stop to ask if it is OK to kick them in the nuts. Once someone invades you, every part of their nation becomes fair game, by any means necessary. That is why it was totally wrong for the Japanese to firebomb Chinese cities but totally right for the US to do the same thing to Japanese cities. The first extends and deepens the war, the second acts to bring it to a close by stopping the aggression. The way I see it, the question of using particular weapons then becomes a political and strategic one — in WWII both sides refrained from using gas out of fear, not moral restraints.

Given the situation in Iraq, if the Iraqis obtain a nuke, would they be justified in wiping out NY? My answer would: of course. But whether it is wise politically and strategically to do so is another question. What do you think?

Michael

August 13, 2007 @ 10:12 am | Comment

all war is horrible. all war is unjust. all war is an abomination of humanity.

August 13, 2007 @ 1:00 pm | Comment

Michael: “Given the situation in Iraq, if the Iraqis obtain a nuke, would they be justified in wiping out NY? My answer would: of course.”

To take that analogy to its logical conclusion, should Kurdish Iraqis get a small tactical nuke and wipe out Tikrit, that would be justified, because to the Kurds, the Sunni are the “perps”. Damn, this slope gets slippery!

Laurie, I believe everyone would agree with the gist of what you say, but most of us view “unjust” as depending upon whether you are a “perp” or a “victim”. Humans, and human societies, do have a right of self-defence.

August 13, 2007 @ 5:07 pm | Comment

To take that analogy to its logical conclusion, should Kurdish Iraqis get a small tactical nuke and wipe out Tikrit, that would be justified, because to the Kurds, the Sunni are the “perps”. Damn, this slope gets slippery!

Yes, it does. So do conventions that define who you can attack and how. After all, the US wasn’t bombing cities in Germany, it was engaged in “precision bombing” of “industrial targets.” In fact, on occasions in both Japan and Germany, when US commanders were ordered to make the city the target, they refused. They wanted that fig leaf. But at least I’m not making a moral equivalence between victim and perp. The US destroyed the several dozen Japanese cities because the Japanese refused to give up the war — something that perhaps our own leaders should think about.

Michael

August 13, 2007 @ 7:01 pm | Comment

It’s amazing what the US is doing to keep down the civilian casualties in Iraq. In WW2, the accuracy of bombing was so low you burned down an entire city to get a factory (which was quickly rebuilt). Now it’s one shell 100 lb and just one house is destroyed, and the one next to it is left standing. Amazing. The amount of people killed in war now in US wars, both Civilian and the US Military is amazingly low. Contrast this with Ethiopia in Somalia, Arabs in Darfur, Russians Chechnia, and other wars. Civilians are just targets. Compare the US and Vietnamese Casualties in Vietnam. US was 30,000, and the Vietnamese was 5.1 Millions. Iraq is US 3682 and Civilian’s 100,000 (open to debate, some say the number is high).

If you wanted to really pacify the place, do a Genghis Khan. But that’s no longer acceptable. As is now days, using an Atomic Bomb. The US society has changed since 1945.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-weather29dec29,0,2536448.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail

My 2 cents. Debating the atomic bomb dropping, it’s done and not relevant to the original thread.

But since it was brought up…

I am surprised nobody brought up the rape of Nanjing, how Allied Prisoners were treated by the Japanese, Comfort Women (including Dutch and Australians), vivisection of prisoners, biological weapon testing on prisoners including allied, etc. Not to mention how the Japanese Government’s textbooks still leave much to be desired…
WSJ Journal just had an article on a Play about the Rape of Nanjing. If you want sickening, take a look at a picture book of the incident. And yes, I visited both Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s Atomic Bomb Museums.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118695989609895471.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

What has been surprising about WW2, is how well it actually turned out for Japan. A better society without their cult of militarism and a great economy.

Iraq, I hope/pray things turn out well after all the mistakes the Bush Administration has made. US patience for wars is about 5 years, and we are past that point with little to show for it and little hope until recently. I hope the Democrats keep pushing the withdrawal message and maybe the Iraqis will wake up because maybe the US might actually withdraw and just let them kill each other. The surge is buying time, but if the Iraqis don’t take advantage of it their loss. What they should do is figure out they need to work it out among themselves and share, instead of their current winner take all attitude.

August 14, 2007 @ 3:14 pm | Comment

Ray, it is not amazing at all. Your 100,000 figure is dubious, to say the least. Last year’s most believable figures were 655,000 excess deaths; around 600,000 of those deaths were through violence; and the biggest single killer was identified as the US military. And that’s last year’s figure. By it is probably around 800,000 dead. If you want to compare that with Darfur, your invasion has killed more people than the Sudanese government. In mitigation you can say that a greater percentage of Darfur’s population have died. That is nothing to be proud of. If you think that not-quite-as-bad-as-genocide is amazing… I don’t think I should finish this sentence.

August 15, 2007 @ 12:37 am | Comment

Ray, while I like the gist of your argument, your figures on Vietnam are flawed. The U.S. lost some 58,000 killed. And 5.1 million Vietnamese haven’t been killed in all the wars of the entire 20th Century, even if you include the tens of thousands massacred during the 1954-56 “agrarian reform” in the North. Wikipedia throws out some slightly smaller totals for just the “american” war, but even that article’s author expresses doubt about North Vietnamese casualty figures. More importantly, U.S. casualty figures cannot simply be compared vis-a-vis Vietnamese, as you implicitly do. Vietnamese troops fought on all sides. My own unit in 1968, a parachute strike (MIKE) force counted some 47 US, 19 Aussies, 34 Vietnamese Special Forces, and over 2,000 troops who were all Vietnamese nationals from tribal minorities.

August 15, 2007 @ 2:45 pm | Comment