So, just as a point of order: would all the people demanding that the U.S. get "out of Iraq now!" please reconsider their position in light of the U.N. endorsement of the U.S. plan to hand power over to an Iraqi interim government? Thank you.
I am not over-pleased with the plan myself (mostly for political, rather than logistical reasons), but we who opposed the invasion of Iraq (and by that I mean, "the not-U.N.-supported invasion of Iraq") need to be willing to admit, at some point, that the milk's been spill't, and just needs to be cleaned up. Whatever should have happened in Iraq, the fact is that there is no government there now and an immediate pull-out would be disastrous for the people who live there. Insisting that the U.S. leave with no replacement government established is a particularly callous manifestation of political correctness that will be extremely expensive for the Iraqi people. Anyone attempting to pass such a position off as being supportive of Iraqis, or sympathetic to their plight ends up looking like an idiot, a liar, or some combination of the two.
I will repeat my usual shtick about needing a more international (that is to say, U.N.-directed) military presence in Iraq. But even a U.S. military presence is better than no military presence at all and with U.N. approval the current U.S. exit plan is, effectively, as legal as it can be.
The invasion itself must be answered for this November. Direct your resources toward that.
"...the fact is that there is no government there now and an immediate pull-out would be disastrous for the people who live there."
People keep saying that. Why is it true? Why do we assume that the Iraqis will do a worse job of governing themselves than the US has been doing? The fact is, we've been doing a pretty shitty job there.
Posted by: barak at June 10, 2004 10:58 PMThe fact is, we've been doing a pretty shitty job there.
I'm just curious here, but by what standard are you making that claim? Do you have a book lying around called "10 Easy Steps For A Flawless Occupation?"
I mean, really, are there some occupations that have taken place during human history that somehow allows you to declare that, by comparison, we're doing a pretty shitty job there?
Because, you know, by my checklist, occupations have historically been a pretty difficult trick to pull off, even the successful ones. Japan, for example, is considered a successful occupation, but the early going on that one was kinda ugly. Ditto Germany (I seem to remember some sort of wall going up, or something).
I'm certainly not saying that we haven't had plenty of misteps in Iraq, but I also can't look at the situation there and say, "gee, overall, we're doing a pretty shitty job there, based on the impossibly high imaginary standards I place on occupations."
And, if we were to pull up stakes today, al Sadr's militias, as well as others, would have a field day.
Posted by: Ryan at June 11, 2004 08:05 AMAre they not having a field day right now at our boys' (and girls') expense? What data do you have that things would get WORSE were we not to simply pull up stakes?
OK, I'll grant you that occupations are traditionally shitty. That is precisely why we should get out. Let the Iraqis govern themselves. They are going to have a bad few months. But they're going to have those bad few months whether our troops (who are trained to fight, not keep peace) are there to take the brunt of it or not.
Posted by: barak at June 11, 2004 10:35 AMRemove the word 'not' from the second sentence.
Posted by: barak at June 11, 2004 10:36 AMLet me take a stab at your reasoning here. Sooooo, we bombed the Iraqis into the stone age, and now we should leave them to their own machinations. Fantabulous idea you have there. Leave them with no standing army to protect their borders from, oh say, the Iranians, leave their disheveled infrastructure in tatters, leave them with an economic situation that has to start from scratch. Yeah, I'm sure nothing but wonderful things would spring from those ashes. Post-WWI Germany developed swimmingly under such a bomb-em and leave-em approach.
Posted by: Ryan at June 11, 2004 10:49 AMYeah, I'd pretty much have to agree with Mr. Rhodes on this one. One need look no further than Afghanistan to see the disastrous effects of this approach. As much as I opposed the Iraq war initially, the fact is that it happened and the U.S. has a certain responsibility to help clean up the mess we've made. Leaving the Iraqis to twist in the wind now would be unconscionable, not to mention short-sighted.
Posted by: flamingbanjo at June 11, 2004 12:05 PMOh, so now we are there to protect the Iraqis from the Iranians? I suppose now that we know that all the reasons for the invasion Chalabi gave us came from Chalabi, we have to come up with new ones? I don't buy it. We can prevent Iran from invading Iraq without occupying Iraq.
I'm not saying we shouldn't help Iraq rebuild, we should fund the whole thing. I call that "war reparations".
The reason WWI Germany turned into WWII Germany was that we left them without any economy at all. As I see it, having an unwelcome occupying army is an IMPEDIMENT to rebuilding their economy.
We should fund the repair and let the Iraqis hire any contractor they want.
We came in through their living room window, smashed all their furniture, killed their eldest son, and watched as their neighbors looted the china cabinet. Now we're insisting that they let us stay and fix the damage. They want us out. The least we should do is go and pay them for the damage.
Posted by: barak at June 11, 2004 04:53 PMWe came in through their living room window, smashed all their furniture, killed their eldest son, and watched as their neighbors looted the china cabinet
I consider that a complete mischaracterization. For one thing the term "eldest son" implies things about Saddam Hussein's relationship to the Iraqi people that are, prima facie, untrue. And we surely to fuck didn't sneak in anyone's living room window. We did what America always does: we kicked down the front door, charged in and started shooting. We cut the power. We cut the plumbing. We broke every light in the house.
But that's not really the point.
Right now Iraq is essentially three mutually antagonistic nations in one country— and everyone's heavily armed. Their infrastructure is smashed, so resources are limited. If we pull out now, these armed nations will start to fight it out among themselves for control over the limited resources. It'll be a bloodbath. That's not a judgment of the Iraqis in particular. If I carpet bombed Southern California, blew up all the sewage treatment plants and electrical relay stations, drove tanks through the crop fields— then handed everyone an AK-47 and walked away— hey, guess what, that'd be a bloodbath too.
At this point, Iraq needs foreign troops in order to keep the three nations from forming militias and going to war against each other. Those foreign troops will, unfortunately, provide the three nations with a common enemy they can all hate. At this point, we pretty much just have to lump it until there's enough infrastructure, at a minimum, to remove that "limited resources" issue from the equation. People who with flush toilets, electricity, and food are much less inclined to run around killing each other.
A significant number of Iraqis want the U.S. there. Until the whole prison abuse thing, it was right around half of them. Which, when you consider that we did invade their country, is pretty remarkable. I think the prison abuse issue is being mishandled. But that doesn't change the basic fact that having foreign troops in Iraq is, for the time being, a civil necessity.
The house we kicked down the door of was a crack house, of sorts— an economy based on oil and the use of force. U.S. forces arrested the dealer. If they just leave again, one of the crackheads will get in touch with the dealer's connections and put the crack house back in business very quickly. It's necessary, under the circumstances, to stick around; provide treatment to those that need it. Fix the plumbing and the electricity. Get those who want jobs into training programs. Etc etc. I wish we had handled things differently earlier. But leaving now is really a bad idea.
I certainly didn't mean to say we SNUCK in. I think your characterization of breaking down the door etc. catches the essence of what I was trying to say. By the living room window I only meant to imply that little things like roads or doors didn't really matter to us.
As for the eldest son, I was in no way referring to Saddam. I was referring to the thousands of military age men we buried in the sand on the way in and the rest that we killed in their white Toyota pickup trucks.
You should realize by now that this war was never really about Saddam any more than it was about WMD or terrorists. It was about making a military operation to put bases in the middle east and control the oil. But I digress.
I disagree with your characterization of Iraq as a crack house. Iraq had the most modern economy in the Arab world. It looked much like a modern industrialized nation before Gulf War I. Granted, it was ruled with an iron fist and Saddam skimmed what he could for himself. But it was not uncommon for women to be civil engineers or software engineers. People lived their day to day lives in relative peace and prosperity before '91.
I also disagree with your characterization of Southern California. If we were invaded, armed and left as you suggest, I like to think that for the most part we would work things out better than if the Damn Canadians who did this to us stuck around to try to 'help' us fix it.
As I said, the Iraqis had a modern economy before we smashed it. I see no reason WE need to create training programs for them. They are capable of handling it for themselves.
As for the rest, you may be right. Maybe there would be a war if we left. What I objected to way up there in my first comment, was the way that you characterized the idea that we have to stay as patently obvious. It's not patently obvious. At least it shouldn't be. Just like it was not patently obvious that Saddam had WMD before the war. And it was not obvious that blacks should not marry whites. And it was not obvious that AIDS was a 'gay curse.' And it was not obvious that women should stay home and cook and clean. Things we take as given, are not always such. We should question assumptions. I question the assumption that we need to keep military forces in Iraq. I may be wrong.
That was the idea I was hoping to get at before Ryan started saying things that made me want to make fun of him.
Posted by: barak at June 11, 2004 11:38 PMYou should realize by now that this war was never really about Saddam any more than it was about WMD or terrorists. It was about making a military
I don't think we actually disagree about much on the topic of Iraq, except what's "obvious". You state the above like it's obvious. I happen to agree with some of it, but it is certainly far less "obvious" than the need for foreign troops in Iraq right now.
Iraq had the most modern economy in the Arab world. It looked much like a modern industrialized nation before Gulf War I. Granted, it was ruled with an iron fist and Saddam skimmed what he could for himself. But it was not uncommon for women to be civil engineers or software engineers. People lived their day to day lives in relative peace and prosperity before '91.
Poppycock. Prior to 1991 they were fighting a vicious border war against Iran and Saddam Hussein was taking political prisoners and committing mass murders and purges. I will grant that Iraq was modern compared to many Middle Eastern nations, but the character of that modernity was closer to the modernity of the Soviet Union under Stalin than this picture you paint of a nice Western-style industrialized nation.
Just so we're clear: I don't think that particularly excuses the 1991 invasion. But if your thesis is that Iraq was a nice place to live before 1991, I'm going to have to say "no".
I also disagree with your characterization of Southern California. If we were invaded, armed and left as you suggest, I like to think that for the most part we would work things out better than if the Damn Canadians who did this to us stuck around to try to 'help' us fix it.
You are certainly entitled to your opinion. My own experiences living in SoCal support my hypothesis. There is also a certain historical support for the notion-- SoCal has had two massive race riots in the last 50 years, suggesting quite plainly that there's a lot of sublimated cultural tension in SoCal. If there was a war and SoCal was smashed, and the U.S. federal government didn't come back in to repair that infrastructure, I imagine that the Latinos and other so-called "minorities" might have something to say about any reconstruction plan that put the same people back in power. And if everyone was heavily armed, I think the conversation might take place with lots of bullets.
In discussing the argument that human nature in inherently violent, Howard Zinn makes the point that aboriginal tribes that live in places of great abundance tend to be extremely pacific and mellow, while tribes that come from places where resources are extremely scarce are much more inclined to fight it out. I chose SoCal as an example of a place where the population exceeds the ability of the land to support it without massive technological intervention and a ready supply line to the outside world. If you cut those things off, people will start fighting for control of resources.
Ditto Iraq.
I disagree with your characterization of Iraq as a crack house.
I describe Iraq as a crack house because a crack house is a place where there's a lot of need, and very little capacity to fill it. Iraq is a place full of people who have been living in abject poverty, surrounded by violence, for 13 years. They have very little in the way of native resources. In order to get the resources they need to survive, they would have to spontaneously unify, organize oil production, come to an agreement about how to distribute profits from oil production, and spend those profits to rebuild their infrastructure.
Now, do I need to spell out to you all the ways that's not possible in the current situation? Oil production is incredibly vulnerable to sabotage, and everyone in Iraq is armed to the teeth. So the distribution of resources would have to satisfy everyone, or any one of those groups that felt like they got the short end of the stick could damage production capacity by way of protest. Unification would have to take place very quickly, in spite of decades of mutual antagonism and, again, lots of weapons. Any delay in unification would mean people were starving, which would make them reckless which is bad because...? See above re "armed to the teeth". Etc, etc.
Iraqis need troops to keep the peace who are not engaged in the regional politics.
The United States is the worst possible choice for that role, because we are engaged in regional politics to the extent that we have a vested interest in what happens with Iraq's oil. And, also, we just killed a whole bunch of Iraqis, then tortured a bunch more. But, for the time being, the U.S. is the only choice for that role-- partly because we won't let the U.N. in on it. I'd love for the troops occupying Iraq to all be from Europe. Or, better yet, Morocco. India. Australia. But that's not what we've got. And, as of last week, the U.N. has acknowledged that and backed the U.S. plan for withdrawal. U.N. endorsement of the plan is as close as we're going to get to an endorsement of the plan's neutrality-- an endorsement of the U.S. insistence that they're in Iraq as stewards of the peace.
So it would be nice, just as a gesture toward growing up and dealing with reality, if lefties in the U.S. would back the plan too instead of standing around like a pack of jerks and insisting that the U.S. do something that's quite likely to kill a whole shitload of Iraqis-- pretty much just out of pique.
The difference between an idealist and an idealogue is that an idealist can recognize when a situation has advanced beyond a theory, and a new theory is called for. It's the difference between protecting the "right to bear arms" and insisting on the right to carry a concealed firearm while intoxicated on alcohol and high on cocaine; no principle enjoys unqualified universal application, least of all "US out of Iraq NOW!"
I concede nearly all your points. Including your third to last paragraph. i.e. that the US is the worst possible choice for peace-keeping. I also concede that there are no other choices.
Kind of like the shibboleth attributed to so and so, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."
Posted by: Barak at June 15, 2004 03:14 PMI wonder if you will hold your views as strongly after perusing this:
http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf
Posted by: Barak at June 29, 2004 02:28 AMOooookay. What am I supposed to be pulling out of all that exactly?
Posted by: Joshua at June 29, 2004 10:05 AMthey should definitely not leave right now
maybe in 6 months or so..