"What is our moral responsibility to the Iraqi people?"

Since march 20 2003 ?

100%

"but we never owned it"

Possibly you americans should have thought of that.

America broke it you fix it.

Arguments that somehow it's all the fault of the iraqis don't wear it.

When the US launched it's unprovoked attack there was an iraqi country that had lasted since 1920.

Now there isn't. You smashed their country. You reopened the torture rooms and now you think you can wander away thinking 'oh well not our problem'

I’d say . . . may be . . . what if . . . or possibly . . . Perhaps . . . give this possibility a try.

Got to admire a man with strong, succinct views.

The Pottery Barn analogy makes no sense. Partly because the Pottery Barn (itself) doesn't actually sell pottery. The alleged pottery sold at Pottery Barn is all machine made, not made by potters, and therefore is not pottery. I know this because my wife is a potter. So even the root of the analogy itself is false, which does not portend well for the mapping of the analogy. It is a lie heaped on top of a lie. What a surprise. What a shock. Oh. And Pottery Barn is not a barn. It is a franchised chain of metal cubicles stuck in ugly metal malls. It's got nothing to do with a barn. Or pottery. No pottery. No barn. No truth. Just lies.

So the "Pottery Barn Analogy" is actually perfect for Iraq since every single bit of it is a lie. And like the Pottery Barn franchise itself, the "analogy" is a fabrication, a lie.

"You break it, you bought it" is a meaningless and stupid metaphor for the ongoing destruction of Iraq. You can't bring 600,000 dead people back to life. You can "break" them (ie. kill them or shatter their bones like a tea cup pounded by a jackhammer). But you can't "buy" them (who wants a rotting corpse of an infant girl or a U.S. soldier?)

I don't get the "you bought it" part of the analogy. Is the U.S. paying Iraqi families cash settlements for their family members who have been killed? Is the U.S. paying Iraqi families compensation for the deaths of their sons and daughters and relatives imprisoned in Abu Ghraib Prison? For their mental torment? For their mental and physical trauma? Are the families of these Iraqis even afforded the opportunity to make a civil damages claim against the U.S for the damage done?

So what is the basis of this "You break it, you bought it" analogy ???

Clearly, the analogy is "You break it ..." and .... that's it.

Or ... "You get to break everything and leave and laugh about it."

Yeah damn yankees responsible for EVERY SINGLE ONE of the deaths in the civil war and all the horrors since.

If only those abolitionist weren''t such arrogant war mongers the south would have remained peaceful and stable...

Wilful arsonists indeed!

"Perhaps our true responsibility is to give this possibility a try."

And if that does not work, what will you try then?

I thank Ivo and Rachel for asking the question of moral responsibility.

There are several parts to the answer, and so I'll begin with the easiest one.

Boycott Gelb and Friedman!

Both of them are hugely influential. Both of them supported the war. Both of them were wrong on the most important issue of the day. Neither one has apologized for being so tragically wrong.

To keep quoting these 2 as experts with no mention of their tragic failures is deeply immoral.

That's for starters. More later...

Josh...

It is our responsibility that the Shi'a and Kurds hate the Sunnis and visa versa?  What is our responsibility then?  Are we to stay for decades maybe centuries trying to ensure they don't act on their animosities and try to kill each other in large numbers like they have in the past and will in the future?  What is our responsibility in the centuries old Arab-Persian hostilities?  Is it now our responsibility to fill the arab power vacuum of our creation and protect them from the Persians?  I see the only responsible thing to do is to get out and not make worse the regional conflicts we seem to have little understanding of and even less of an ability to control...

I dare say we have a much better chance of reaching a satisfactory resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than we do in "fixing what we broke" in Iraq. 

The Pottery Barn analogy always annoyed me albeit in a different manner. If anything, invading Iraq was letting loose a bull in a China shop, then expecting the bull to clean up the mess. Even an engineered human-bull hybrid with opposable thumbs wouldn't be capable of that cleaning duty.

I appreciate that yours is a popular view here at the Cafe but it is also wrong. The idea that leaving Saddem in power was the moral thing to do was shared by almost no would in either the Bush or Clinton Administrations the only question was when he would be removed.

Also what is so inexplicable about Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld in both Afghanistan and most especially in Iraq they never took the steps to assure anything but chaos.

To go to war with a force almost a a fifth the size originally called for by the military does not prove that taking out Saddem was folly. Nor does racing to Baghdad when your generals are telling you they want to take care of the Fedayeen first. The assurance you have that something has been proved by the outcome, other than that Bush is an incompetent seems unsupported by the facts.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

"Ambiguity"! So, that's what it was. Thanks for pointing me to the accurate interpretation, KJ.

And all this time I thought it was just another version of your regular old mealy-mouthed CYA-ing "expertise". My bad.

"...but it is also wrong."

Shorter Daniel: "You disagree with me."

"...the only question was when he would be removed."

I believe "how" was also another question. Not everyone who thought Saddam was a bad guy also thought bombing the shit out of the country was the solution.

Dissent Protects Democracy.

I'm not sure where you picked up your appreciation of my expertise, but as long as you recognize your error...

It's high time to start considering the security and future for the 25 million people who still have survived inside what was once Iraq.

/Tuomas

J. McCutchen

"We broke it, we own it" assumes that we own Iraq and that we can fix what we've broken. There no longer is a viable Iraqi polity. There is no political, civic culture which holds the loyalty of the security forces. There is no state capable of excercising the monopoly on the means of coercion that defines a state.

There is no Iraqi state except on maps. The borders of the nation formerly known as Iraq depict a political geography more properly called "the stateless region of Mesopotamia (Lind).

We broke it but can we put the lamp back together out of the shards? That's hope, not strategy, a dream, not a viable policy. Something else is taking shape and the US military is retarding its development. I recommend (Nir Rosen) Iraq's Descent into Chaos

No we cannot break a nation and then build a nation. This was forseeable in March 2003, and it is a certainty now.

J. McCutchen

. The idea that leaving Saddem in power was the moral thing to do was shared by almost no would in either the Bush or Clinton Administrations the only question was when he would be removed.

I don't really care how many people in the Bush or Clinton administrations thought it moral to remove Saddam.

The question before the house, then as now, "Was it the moral thing to do?"

My answer then as now is determined by my moral compass not George W. Bush and I challenge anyone to apply the test to the facts, then or now:

The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time: 1)the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain; 2)all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective; 3)there must be serious prospects of success; 4)
the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction (The Shock and the Awe) weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.
These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine. The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.

Maybe someone has a different test for the morality of mass death

J. McCutchen

Sorry Avigdor my bad

Dear God, instead of picking apart the "Pottery Barn" rule as to whether it is actually pottery is inane, to say the least. The overall intent is that if American destroys a country, then it will be morall responsible for that country. Paying for it does not entail a specific price tag attached to each building, vehicle or body in the street. Is it any wonder we can never get past rhetoric and talking points designed to hinder communication?

I was against this war before it started. The "evidence" presented did not tally with what I knew to be true. I despised the rationalizations leading to the war, the execution of the war as designed by a political hack, Sec. of Def. Rumsfled and most especially the way the Repubs. used it as a way to divide our country for political gain.

Now, follow the bouncing ball... A moral person knows that they are responsible for the damage that they do to someone else through their actions. The cowardly Repubs who were "first for the war and now against it" flippity-flopped their way right into a golden ticket to hell.

You see? I agree that we need to stay and fix it. Even as a liberal. Why? Because I am a moral person. Those who woke up from the blood lust induced orgy with an emotional hangover and are now wanting to "cut and run" are the people without morals.

It isn't a campaign slogan used to elect your party... sadly, that is all the Repubs have had to offer America for over 6 years... slogans and attacking rhetoric. Morality is being responsible. It isn't pretty, it isn't easy and it will be terribly messy. You don't like it? Neither do I.

However, the great "Divider", er, I mean "Decider" rode on your shoulders to his own personal war... and now it is up to the moral adults to clean up the mess. If you are a Repub and you "flippity-flopped" don't blame me... take a really really good look at where the blame belongs. My stand is unpopular with the people who were always against the war and they, I understand very much. It is the Repubs that are now whining about how tough it is to be who they thought they were that I have utter contempt for.

I would rather live on Discworld.

Like Bush you offer a lot of slogans and a lot of jargon. However no facts or actual thought. From Palestine to Lebanon to Iraq Arabs are killing each other. On the sidelines Persians are encouraging it. Also on the sidelines Sunni Arabs are trying to make sure that Shites Arab or Persian do not get the upperhand.

What is your solution to Arab kiling Arab?

Daniel A. Greenbaum

As a country, we will have no moral standing until Bush, and those who enabled him, are removed from office.

It is time we realize that there is nothing we can now do in Iraq to rectify our guilt and shame, and that staying is most likely only making the situation even worse.

In case the United States now retracts its forces from (ex-) Iraq in a way that makes the conditions for civilians there worse, with more terror with the purpose of ethnic cleansing, with more electric drill torture of people designited to die to serve as warning lessons for people of wrong faith or ancestry, with an intensified civil war and maybe with neighbor countries taking part in the general killing frenzy, who would then be morally responsible for these deaths, for these refugees' fate, for these victims' sufferings?

/Tuomas

What is the solution to Semites killing Semites?

What was the solution to Scandinavian killing Scandinavians, or the Europeans killing Europeans?

What was the solution to Lebanese killing Lebanese?

/Tuomas

In reply, yes Bush had enablers. But in terms of a moral stand, it is the leaders who must take the responsibility, and bear the brunt of the consequences. Appropriate opprobrium for both a weak and foolish Congress and a pitiful media is not out of order, but their removal neither practical nor possible. Bush's is.

The operative words in the second part of your response are "in case." There is not evidence to suggest that what you fear will be the result of our withdrawal is in any way certain, and there is contradicting evidence that our staying may be making things worse. What we are left with is a judgment call, not a moral choice. Since many of those suggesting that if we leave things will get worse, and that if we stay we can prevent that, are the very ones whose initial judgments on the invasion proved so tragically wrong, and whose every call since then have also been horribly, resoundingly wrong what is your basis in assuming they are now right?

If we leave, and make that decision in good faith, believing that it is both the wise and good decision that will cause the least damage, especially as we are now left with no good options in this debacle, and subsequent events prove us wrong then our responsibility is one of judgment, not of morals. The moral responsibility reverts back to those who started this mess.

And that is without even assessing the morality of continuing to ask our own troops to die and be maimed in service of this enormous blunder.

The historical solution of Scandianvians killing Scandinavians and Europeans killing Europeans was more killing. From the Thirty Years War to WwI to WWII Europeans have exhausted themselves in killing each other.

Religious tolerance, NATO, and the EU are all products of Europeans killing each other.

Perhaps it is time for the world to get out of the way and let the Arabs with help from the Iranians and perhapsthe Turks to kill each for a few decades.

I would have thought that might not sit well with a lot of people.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Sure there's a moral responsibility for what has happened in Iraq, an huge responsibility. It's on the shoulders of an elite that worked so hard to start this war. If you want to know who that elite is start looking at who attended the Cheney meeting on energy policy lo these many years ago.

I was out on the streets protesting against a possible war way before they unleashed it, as were many, many other folks.

Our responsibility now is to struggle against this elite and it's means of holding such a strangle hold on the lives, energies, creativity, and deep moral natures of the majority of the American people.

If one feels a personal responsibility for this war perhaps one should start calling for impeachments, investigations, war crimes trials, etc. How can we hope to take any moral action in this mess until we've gotten rid of those that are criminally responsible? And we should not limit this effort to the mere figure heads, the political front men and women. The media oligarchs, the energy corporations all share a responsibility that can be clearly illucidated through diligence.

Responsible action takes work and it appears that we have a lot cut out for us.

You would not help hurricane victims because Katrina was handled so incompetently?

Daniel A. Greenbaum

The more I think about it the more I'm becoming convinced that the war on Iraq may indeed be an indicator of what is yet to come. We have the coming crash of the supply of oil along with an insane stratification of the super rich over the declining middle class.

Really, six years ago, who would've thought we'd be in such a mess in the ME? Yet all the indicators were clear. I'm starting get the feeling that this is just the beginning.

 You would not help hurricane victims because Katrina was handled so incompetently?

No.

We would fire all the folks and the director Max at the hurricane center who predicted that the approaching storm was nothing but a heavy thunderstorm and therefore told everyone that the people of New Orleans need not evacuate. Incompetence of that magnitude is unconscionable and warrants NEVER ever having a world stage again to make utterly FALSE and EXCEEDINGLY DANGEROUS predictons which killed thousands of people.

Mr. Greenbaum,

As you know, this invasion and occupation was not sold and started -- based upon the admissions of its own designers -- as a moral, humanitarian mission to relieve the people of Iraq from the effects of his despotism. That was not the reason given. Nor was that the reason at all. Since the reasons provided by its designers were and are fraudulent, it is still unknown to me why this war of adventure was begun in the first place.

As such, the first and most important moral responsibility of this War's designers is to tell the Iraqi and the U.S. people the truth as to why this War was even started. This has not happened yet. It is an essential precondition.

Cheers.

. . . the director Max at the hurricane center who predicted that the approaching storm was nothing but a heavy thunderstorm and therefore told everyone that the people of New Orleans need not evacuate.

Have you got a link for this Max Mayfield reassurance?

Because the record shows that on Friday, August 26, 2005, at 4:00PM NOAA predicted that Katrina would become a category four hurricane and would hit the SE Louisiana coast within 72 hours.

BTW, before I replied, now, you should have been able to edit your post--it's next to "reply" and write to author". Since you added the corrective I reply here.

Exactly the point--as Chomsky says, "actions are judged on the basis of expected outcome." That is, if you intended to kill someone matters more than if your bullet missed and killed someone else that needed killing.

The cause of the war is best ascribed to the decision to demonize Saddam during Gulf War I. That decision is not clear, but all that follows is. Once Saddam was Evil, we could not accept any rehabilitation for him. Therefore, the sanctions would continue until a cause for another fight arose. Scott Ritter makes this argument, and suggests that it would have happened for some pretext or other, eventually. (He does not justify it, only offers the explanation.)

This vague imperative underlies the shifting rationales. Also to be considered is the more general observation that like national elections, wars are prosecuted by many people, and many reasons come into play.

Nevertheless, when a nation acts preemptively as we did, it is necessary to offer a rationale. In this we failed. There must be a moral purpose for a just war. There must at least be an expectation of success for a war of choice. These guys were either dreaming, venal, or stupid.

Have you got a link for this Max Mayfield reassurance?

No. It was a 'hypothetical' response to what the actions would have needed to be in reply to Daniel's query regarding Katrina as analogy for Bushes debacle. Using his Katrina analogy I gave what Max's parallel acts would have needed to be prior to Katrina to be on the same scale of incompetence as Bushe's debacle in Iraq. .

He's got it wrong about the poison gas. He's right about the gunships.