I agree with everything here.

Perhaps the first rule should be:  War is not a game.  War is not a foreign policy move.  War is a last resort and is only to be used when all else has failed, and not going to war presents an immediate threat to the security of the nation.

And, the next rule:  Preemptive war is always the wrong move.  When you attack before you have been attacked you start out with no moral standing, no international support, and little chance, if any, to succeed. 

Hoppy in Sacramento

Preemptive war is always the wrong move. When you attack before you have been attacked you start out with no moral standing, no international support, and little chance, if any, to succeed.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

What level of economic development must precede democracy?

That of fifth century Athens? 

You are conflating battlefield decisions with command decisions made at the Presidential level.  In  your Pearl Harbor analogy, for example, a true analogy would be if Roosevelt had felt sure that Japan had the means and desire to attack the US, so he massed US armed forces in the Philipines, announced that if Hirohito would step down, and if Japan would allow US "inspectors" free run to look all over Japan for military information, he would not order an assault.  That policy would not have been a good one.

The comparison with fire control radar is off the wall - if someone points a gun at you, it is not pre-emptive or preventative to shoot him.  It is simple self defense.  If you suspect that someone has a gun or two and desires your death, and then you shoot him, that is murder.

Hoppy in Sacramento

Hoppy, you're right. The sub paragraph to your first rule is: wars can be lost by either side. We are not going to merely leave Iraq short of our goals. We are not going to simply lose face and advantage when we leave Iraq. We are going to lose the war. Hopefully we'll lose it the same way the Soviets lost Afghanistan, with orderly retreat. Or the way we lost Vietnam, retreating months before our puppet army collapses. But there is also the likelihood that we'll lose 10,000 soldiers fighting their way back out to Kuwait with the nearest evacuation ships bobbing in the Indian ocean unable to enter the smouldering Straits of Hormuz. That's why you only wage war as a last resort, it may indeed be your LAST resort! We're not playing golf here.......

Unfortunately, partition will not help this. A common Western response to ethnic conflict is 'I guess they really do take this group identity thing seriously; better separate 'em.' Besides the fact that it is the political equivalent of amputation, it still does not in itself create the conditions for a demcoratic society. The tribe or sect does not come with a working civil society, ready made. In fact, civil society, founded upon the idea of voluntary association, is quite contrary to the basic meaning of tribe and sect.

A few points:

Aren't there some extreme situations in which amputation is medically indicated - for example in situations in which the only alternative is that the infection from one part of the body will spread to other parts?

Although a division of a country may not always produce the conditions for a democratic society, it may under the right circumstances produce the conditions for people not murdering each other. Maybe we should spend a little less time worrying about democratic openings, and a bit more worrying about how to end the butchery.

It seems rather absurd to be worrying now about Iraqi "civil society". It doesn't appear that there are a whole lot of Iraqis who are any longer interested in remaining voluntarily associated on a pan-Iraqi basis. Some do want to force others to remain associated with them, but voluntariness doesn't always seem to enter into it the considerations. Should we compel people to remain voluntarily associated, even when it is involuntary, so that they can enjoy the blessings of non-sectarian civil society?

But seriously. Millions and millions of corpses. Corpses piled in pyramids. Piles of rotting flesh and bones damming the streams. Rivers running red. Wars and hatred and bloodshed for generations.

I didn't state a plan, Valdron. My suggestion was that if the momentum in Iraq, among Iraqis themselves, is pulling more in the direction of separation or strong regional autonomy than a united country, it is foolish to attempt to yoke the Iraqis together by force out of some misguided American Toquevillian dreams of constructing a pan-Iraqi "civil society" based on "voluntary association." This is simply not the direction in which Iraq is headed.

I have no interest in seeing the US draw lines. But many Iraqis are disposed to draw those lines, and as they go about doing so I don't think US policy should be to resist these efforts through the application of violence, either directly or by supplying and empowering proxies.

The ethnic cleansing and purges you describe are already happening. Violence is being done both by those aiming at regional autonomy, and by those who are eager to keep Iraq together. In fact, at the present moment, I would say more of the violence is due to the latter forces than the former. But if you can convince me that there is some road leading to a unified and peaceful Iraq that is less corpse-strewn than any one of the several roads leading to divided and peaceful Iraqs, then let me know where that road lies - because I'm not seeing it.

I read an article recently by Gareth Porter in Tom Paine that discusses, among other things, the intentions of the Mahdi Army:

First, the military reality. With the buildup of the Shiite sectarian militias—and particularly the Mahdi army of Moqtada al-Sadr—the U.S. occupation force no longer represents the predominant military power in Iraq. A study issued in August by Chatham House, the influential British strategic think tank, said the Mahdi army, which was believed to have fewer than 10,000 men under arms when the United States tried to destroy it August 2004, may now be “several hundred thousand strong.” In addition, the Badr Organization, which is affiliated with the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq, has tens of thousands of Shiite militiamen.

Sadr is confident that, once the Shiite government has gotten everything it can out of the United States to strengthen Shiite forces, they can defeat the Sunnis by military force. As Moqtada al-Sadr’s spokesman Mustafa Yaqoubi told The Washington Post last month, the “other forces” would not “have the capability to match us.” Yaqoubi also made it clear that Sadr’s Mahdi army intends to force the United States out of Iraq. “If we leave the decision to [the Americans], they will not leave,” he said, “To get the occupiers to leave, [the Americans] need some sacrifice.”

The Mahdi Army also made clear last weak its determination to remain armed, so that it can fight, when it needs to, both the Badr Corps and "the terrorists" - i.e., the insurgency - and defend "the people".

So these are one of the parties interested in Iraqi "unity". They can't wait to get the Americans out of the way so they can unleash hell on the insurgents, and also make a power play for control of the Shiite regions of the country, even though there are many Shiites in those regions who do not at all want to be ruled by the Sadrists. Some of those Shiites, in the Basra governate, favor an autonomous Basra region. Should I oppose that movement and support the Sadrists because the latter are interested in "unifying" - i.e. conquering - much of Iraq? Should I back the Shiite death squads, connected with the central government, who now have a taste of power and appear determined to establish firm Shiite control over Sunni Iraq?

Interestingly enough, the insurgents in the predominanty Sunni provinces and Baghdad who slaughter Shiite "apostates" are also strongly in favor of Iraqi unity. They also want to defend "the people." Unfortuantely, their vision of a future unified Iraq is greatly at odds with the Mahdi Army's vision. each is in the other's way.

Sometimes the desire for unity is not based on a desire for everyone to join together and "get along". It is based on a will to power. It is based on the desire to keep people connected with you by force so that you can then dominate them.

So you tell me which direction in Iraq does not lead to the piles of bones, the blood in the streets and the mass graves.

Here's a rule derived from the last five years and nine months - keep W and his cronies as far away from the levers of power as possible.

Tom

Dan, I looked over the thread, and it occurs to me that you either couldn't understand or simply refused to acknowledge the points previously made upthread.

You seem emotionally committed to a course of conduct and bent on wrapping any old facts or arguments you find laying around to support it, while ignoring issues you dislike.

If that works for you, I'm glad. But at the same time, its not an approach that I find leads to constructive arguments.

Rather, it amounts to my explaining things, you ignoring them and re-iterating half baked talking points, my explaining things again, and your ignoring and re-iterating.

Frankly, life is too short. Please accept my apologies if you've found my efforts to aquaint you with reality have caused you any distress or upset.

Have a nice day.

Up thread hoppycalif2 said:

Perhaps the first rule should be: War is not a game. War is not a foreign policy move.

Four words will pretty much sum up "war" and specifically this Iraq boondoggle...

War is a Racket Smedley Butler, Major General - USMC | Two time Medal of Honor recipient

That may be dated related to armament and technologies and the like ... But in light of the fact that the word "profit" pops up 80 times in that piece ... it makes the point!

And the following quote from a speech Smedley gave in 1933, really drives home his point:

"The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag."

~OGD~

This was the only objective argument that could be made at the time to condemn Hitler - that he invaded Poland. Ditto Saddam and Kuwait.

Actually, I consider the Saddam invasion of Kuwait an excellent example where a pre-emptive strike would've been justified. The overt threats, the massing of troups along the border, the shipping blockade, all within a month or 2 of the invasion. It seemed to be a very clear and present danger, at least IMO.

Now from a USA perspective, maybe now so much since there was the little issue that Kuwait was not only not an ally but some considered it an enemy. But Kuwait and its allies could have launched a preemptive strike and been justified.

You write that it is foolish to yoke the Iraqi's together by force. But in fact, practically all of American policy under Clinton and Bush has been to drive the country apart. This extended to Clinton and Bush I's imposition of 'no fly' zones, and the enforcement of such zones for more than a decade.

It also extends to the United States policy of dismantling the Federal state government, privatization or dissolution of state industries, debathification, and dissolution of the Army and police, the mismanagement and failure to restore the health care system, education system, social assistance system, electrical grid, etc. ... essentially, for one reason or another, the United States went on an apparently systematic campaign to destroy, dismantle or cripple literally every national institution or function.

I agree with all of this. The US followed a strategy for 15 years of weakening the central Iraqi state by impoverishing it, weakening its hold on the Iraqi people, and crippling its ability to govern the country. It astonishes me that people are surprised that the invasion, followed by the scraping away the last vestiges of that state, could have had any effect other than the total state collapse and disintegration we have seen, and a division of the country into a decentralized collection of local powers.

But the fact is that the US did destroy the Iraqi state, and it is unreasonable to suspect that that state it is going to fly back together again, in any form, once the US leaves and stops exerting these supposed centrifugal forces. If you drop the hammer on something, the pieces don't all glue themselves back together when you lift the hammer.

We need to think about Iraq in the same way we think about other catastrophic situations of state collapse, rampant violence, chaotic civil disorder and human misery. In many such cases, people argue for the introduction of peacekeeping or peacemaking forces of some kind. If you son't think the US has a responsibility to do this job, or is capable of doing this job, then fine. You can't imagine how dearly I want to get my country out of Iraq and the rest of the Middle East. But then if the US isn't to do it, someone else is going to have to do it, or else we can all just continue to watch the bloodbath.

You say:

Your one distinction is the arbitrary and unfounded assertion that right at this moment, more of the killing is being done by one than by the other. Thats a statement without a meaningful foundation, and unlikely to be true in any long term.

Maybe its wrong, but it's not unfounded. It's based on trying to note which groups are doing most of the killing, and marking their agendas to the best I can make it out.

One such group is the US military. The US mission in Iraq is to win Bush's stupid war. He is still bent on securing the control of the new central government over all of Iraq. He wants to defeat the insugency and the terr'ists, and bring the Sunni provinces under Baghdad's rule.

Another violent group, or groups, appear to be the Shiite militas and death squads aligned with parties in the Iraqi governemt. They are also determined to secure Shiite rule in Iraq, and bring the Sunni provinces to heel under the control of the central government.

The other group is the Sunni insurgency. I have read the public statements and manifestos of many of these groups, and almost all of them claim to be fighting for a unified Iraq. They don't want that unity on Bush's terms, or on terms agreeable to the majority Shiite and Kurdish groups who have actually attempted to gain control of the Iraqi government. But they are very opposed to separation.

The Mahdi Army is also a noted opponent of federalism or regional autonomy, and a defender of Iraqi unity.

These groups all favor Iraqi unity, but depressingly enough, they have very different visions of what that unified Iraq should look like.

On the other hand, there are not nearly as many reports about separatist violence. Where are the reports of terrorist attacks or sabotage by the "rebels" in "the breakaway republic of X"? There are Kurdish groups engaged in ethnic fighting in contested cities like Kirkuk. But as far as I can tell, the Kurds mainly want to be left alone to run their own affairs, and are being attacked by people who are determined not to let them do it. And I just haven't seen any reports of Kurdish rebel suicide bombers blowing up 50 people at a clip.

So I stand by my assertion that the most violent groups in Iraq right now are those fighting for an agenda of unification.

But the fact is that the US did destroy the Iraqi state, and it is unreasonable to suspect that that state it is going to fly back together again, in any form, once the US leaves and stops exerting these supposed centrifugal forces. If you drop the hammer on something, the pieces don't all glue themselves back together when you lift the hammer.

'Supposed' centrifugal forces? There's nothing 'supposed' about it, you've pretty much acknowledged everything as true. Where do you get 'supposed'?

I note you've gone with the pottery barn analogy. Very good. The better analogy is that of a rapist or abuser. Basically, if you stopped raping the victim, maybe that would be a good step? We could see if there's a capacity of healing.

Ongoing American policy seems calculated not just to destroy the Iraqi state, but to keep it destroyed. On this basis your approach seems to be that the damage is done, might as well continue.

Essentially, your position is that of the pedophile who, acknowledging he's done a bad thing in taking a childs virtue, supposes that the damage is done and he may as well keep raping her, as it will teach her a useful trade in her future life of shame.

To put it another way, the Hippocratic Oath requires that if nothing else, do no harm. Your approach seems to be that having inflicted years of unilateral policies on Iraq which destroys or weakens the state, the best thing to do is dissolve it entirely. That's not 'doing no harm' that's following through on harm.

We need to think about Iraq in the same way we think about other catastrophic situations of state collapse, rampant violence, chaotic civil disorder and human misery.

In this situation, your solution is equivalent to having Bush bomb New Orleans after Katrina. Your solution is calculated to take a bad situation and make it horrific.

In many such cases, people argue for the introduction of peacekeeping or peacemaking forces of some kind. If you son't think the US has a responsibility to do this job, or is capable of doing this job, then fine.

I'm astonished that you think that after two wars against Iraq, 12 years of sanctions and punitive bombings, and three years of spectacularly brutal and incompetent military occupation, that you have any credibility of capacity as peacekeepers in Iraq.

Fallujah slip your mind? Abu Ghraib? These things are very fresh in the minds of every Iraqi. You have incredible amounts of baggage. These people hate you.

The situation is analogous to the Russians going in as peacekeepers in Chechnya, or the Germans going in as peacekeepers in Lebanon.

You can't imagine how dearly I want to get my country out of Iraq and the rest of the Middle East.

You obviously can't imagine how dearly the Iraqi's want you out of their country.

But then if the US isn't to do it, someone else is going to have to do it, or else we can all just continue to watch the bloodbath.

Whereas the U.S. presence guarantees and exacerbates that bloodbath.

In regard to who is doing the most killing... Separatists or Unificationists.

Maybe its wrong, but it's not unfounded. It's based on trying to note which groups are doing most of the killing, and marking their agendas to the best I can make it out.

Your unverified judgement does not fill me with confidence. No offence. I'd just like something more.

One such group is the US military.

You mean your peacekeepers? Do you even read what you write, or is it just a random torrent of free association? Just curious.

Another violent group, or groups, appear to be the Shiite militas and death squads aligned with parties in the Iraqi governemt. They are also determined to secure Shiite rule in Iraq, and bring the Sunni provinces to heel under the control of the central government.

How do you know? Have they published a manifesto? Are there interviews with death squad leaders? How active are they in Sunni core areas, as opposed to borderland or mixed areas? Maybe they're secessionists?

The other group is the Sunni insurgency. I have read the public statements and manifestos of many of these groups, and almost all of them claim to be fighting for a unified Iraq.

I'll grant that is correct.

They don't want that unity on Bush's terms,

Wow. Who'd have thunk?

or on terms agreeable to the majority Shiite and Kurdish groups who have actually attempted to gain control of the Iraqi government. But they are very opposed to separation.

Kurds aren't a majority. They're a minority who the Americans have placed in an advantageous position through manipulation of the Iraqi political process.

That said, do you dismiss entirely the willingness of Sunni's to participate in the parliamentary process. A process which is all too willing to exclude and ignore them?

On the other hand, there are not nearly as many reports about separatist violence.

Except of course for Ethnic cleansing in Sunni/Shiite areas, and Ethnic cleansing in Kirkuk?

Where are the reports of terrorist attacks or sabotage by the "rebels" in "the breakaway republic of X"?

Doesn't the absence of 'breakaway republics of X' mean that there is no political movement for secession or partition? Doesn't this mean that the Iraqi's themselves have a broad consensus that they want a unified state, though they have differences as to what that state should look like? Who are you to substitute your solution for theirs?

There are Kurdish groups engaged in ethnic fighting in contested cities like Kirkuk.

Your phrasing here verges on dishonesty. The Kurds are engaged in the same sorts of ethnic cleansing and genocidal practices that you attribute to unificationists. The pains that you have taken to characterize it differently is very stalinist of you.

But as far as I can tell, the Kurds mainly want to be left alone to run their own affairs,

Taking Kirkuk, killing off Turkmen and Assyrians, driving away Arabs, and of course resuming an insurgency with Turkey?

and are being attacked by people who are determined not to let them do it.

Darn those Turkmen and Arabs for not dying peacefully. Darn them to heck!

And I just haven't seen any reports of Kurdish rebel suicide bombers blowing up 50 people at a clip.

They don't have to. Their militias have free run of their area, they enjoy maximum American patronage and political control of their regions, and occasionally they can call in a U.S. Airstrike on people they don't like.

On the other hand, the Sunnis have no luck getting the US to make airstrikes on their behalf. So they're stuck with suicide bombers.

So I stand by my assertion that the most violent groups in Iraq right now are those fighting for an agenda of unification.

Well, now that I know what your assertion is based on, I think we both agree that I can freely dismiss it as without merit.

I notice that you've avoided discussing the real prospect of major league genocide, or the politically dangerous but inevitable outcomes of multiple civil wars, interstate wars, destabilization and low intensity conflicts.

I presume you have no answer for these.

Ah well, until US troops wear blue helmets and ride unicorns, we'll have to call it a day...

I do indeed fear the prospect of major league genocide. And I admit the possibility that moves toward division could lead in that direction. I also believe that your preferred approach could lead in that direction. The one thing that is clear is that the US has created a total fucking mess in Iraq. And I don't claim to have any definitive ideas about the best way out of it. But I'll continue to try to debate the issue instead of hiding behind self-admiring, adolescent raillery and sarcasm.

The rapist/abuser analogy seems to me a bad one. That's because a rape has a single victim. When the rape ends, the victim is a single, integral agent with something like a unified conception of her own self-interest, who can seek healing relief and attempt to put her life back together. But the particular kind of damage the US has done in Iraq is to create a country full of people who are in various states of war with one another other. there is no such unified "Iraqi interest" - only the conflicting interests of different warring groups. That sucks for the people who are genuinely committed to peace and unity, but unfortunately there is no power in Iraq with the capability of subduing these contending groups and restoring order.

US actions and the US occupation catalyzed the wars, but they are no longer the driving force behind them. In fact, the US presence seems increasingly irrelevant to what is going on in Iraq, which has taken on a life of its own. The furies have already been loosed from Tartarus.

So if you want me say that the US invasion is responsible for sowing devastation and violence in Iraq, then of course I agree, as I have myself stated dozens of times. But I hold it is wishful thinking to imagine that the main driver of the ongoing wars is now the centrifugal force exerted by the US, and that these wars are likely to simmer down once the US leaves. The US may have stupidly and ciminally lit the fire, but my guess is its going to keep raging on, even after the US is gone.

You say:

You mean your peacekeepers? Do you even read what you write, or is it just a random torrent of free association? Just curious.

First, you are not "just curious". You're just being an asshole. And I think it is you who are failing to read, or reason, or both. I fail to see the contradiction between these two groups of views:

1. The US military has been fighting a war in Iraq. It is fighting that war to establish a unified Iraqi central state which it hopes will turn into a hospitable regional ally. That effort is futile, and only provokes greater violence. The US military is also responsible for most of the deaths that have taken place in the country.

2. The US government should stop fighting the war against the insurgency, cease its efforts to establish central government rule over all of Iraq, but participate as needed in peacekeeping and providing security for an Iraq that is fragmenting and falling deeper into civil violence and war.

As for the aims of the Shiite militias, here is one article about those militias, from last year, and here is another based on information compiled by the Bertrand Russell tribunal.

The picture I get from these and other readings is that most of these militias are supplied and funded by the US, connected with powerful Shiite figures in the Iraqi government, and engaged in a dirty terrorist war against the insurgency, on behalf of the US and the central government that both are trying to prop up. So yes, I would say these are groups that support unifying iraq - by force.

One exception to the above pattern seems to be the Mahdi Army, which has recently attacked Iraqi government police forces in Amara. But the Mahdi army is clearly also on record as opposed to federalism and separation. Sadr isn't a separatist.

A related phenomenon is the activity of other Shiite militias in the Basra governate. These militias are engaged in attacks against British forces, but also claim to be loyal to the central government. They are pursuing a more hardline Khomeinist agenda, and apparently want to build Basra into the foundation of an Islamic state. How far that Islamic state is supposed to extend across Iraq is not clear to me. And I suppose the same is true of the most extreme Islamist contingents of Sunni insurgents in central Iraq who aim to establish a Salafi-style state. While their chief aim may be to establish such a state across all of Iraq, perhaps they will settle for plan B - a Salafi state in one part of Iraq - if plan A doesn't seem achievable.

What seems clear to me is that, whether the actions of these groups are aimed at unification or division, the various Shiite groups are certainly not engaged primarilly in fighting the occupation - indeed, several of them are fighting covertly with the occupation forces against their enemies - but have far-reaching sectarian and partisan agendas that show little realistic hope of being resolved any time soon through some sort of political compromise. The same is true of their major enemies.

Now suppose some of these groups do give up on thie more far-reaching goals, move toward separatist agendas, and declare independence of some kind. Suppose some militia successfully seizes control of the instruments of governance in southern Iraq and declares an "Islamic Republic of Basra". What will your position be? Should they be allowed to separate? Should foreign governments arm the Iraqi central government sufficiently so that the latter can reconquer Basra and environs on behalf of the "Iraqi nation?"

And is it your view that the Kurds should be compelled to cohabit with their enemies inside a unified Iraqi state, even if that is not their desire?

As far as I can tell, you have no ideas - only jokes and spleen.

Endorse it or not, it seems clear that a large number of people in what was once Iraq want to live in states and communities that have an ethnic foundation, a national foundation or a religious foundation. So it's realy not up to the United States. You can't infuse the minds of a population with a liberal contractarian theory of government simply by willing it. What would you suggest? Ideological reeducation camps?

I don't think people in Iraq have been at each others throats for centuries. But groups of them have been increasingly at each others throats for a few decades now - since the ascendancy of Saddam, the Iran-Iraq war and then the aftermath of the Gulf War. And prior to that, the ideology of Iraqi unity was a very weak and geographically limited one, given that the state was manufactured by a Western power out of three distinct Ottoman villayets. The idea of national unity was a propaganda construction based on some scaps of Babylonian and Abbassid mythology, and foisted on Iraqis by people like Saddam. Some of the folks from Saddam's own tribe and homeland drank the Kool-Aid, but for much of the rest of the country it quite apparently didn't stick.

I don't favor "partition" - which suggests foreign powers getting all Sykes-Picot and drawing lines on a map. What I do favor is simply adapting to the dominant trends in Iraq. And if these trends are pushing in the direction of separation, it is a mitake to try to forcibly unify the country in order to force it into some Western model of appropriate forms of government.

Ever since this war began, and even during the pre-war debate, I have run into variants of this sort of argument: "You critics of Middle East transformation think that the people of the Middle East are primitive savages who are incapable of living peacefully under a liberal democratic government. But I, on the other hand, believe that these people are fully capable of living under an enlightened regime of the sort we know and love in the West."

The problem with this argument is that it is actually the speaker's words which drip with bigotry and chauvinism - not the critic's. Because the speaker seems to presuppose that if some people in the Middle East were not willing to live under liberal democratic government, then they would be inferior and barbarous. The speakers charitable "liberality" consists only in his belief that Middle Easterners are capapble of adopting Western norms of political behavior.

Shorter Valdron: I can't read, so I make things up.