Mr. Gitlin says:

No discussion of where to go from here can begin whether wrapping the mind around just who is running the country.

Once that mind-wrapping has thoroughly and rigorously concluded, is there any honorable course aside from bringing articles of impeachment?  I'm looking forward with all eagerness to congressional oversight. 

aMike

the utter inability of the liberal hawks to understand is not, in any significant way, different from the utter inability of the bush administration to understand.

which is why slate is no longer worth reading.

They are in the hallucinating, fact-bending, reality-canceling game.

It's worse than that. They are in the denial of truth for purposes of PR game. The insurgency couldn't be properly dealt with at its outset because military leaders were not permitted to use the word "insurgency." Tactics against guerrilla warriors could not be discussed because "geurilla war" was not allowed to be said. Working out tactics to deal with civil war or a failed state are impeded because those conditions cannot be said to exist.

Or, as the president puts it:

Mr. Bush still insists on talking about victory, even if his own advisers differ about how to define it. “It’s a word the American people understand,” he told members of the Iraq Study Group who came to see him at the White House in November, according to two commission members who attended. “And if I start to change it, it will look like I’m beginning to change my policy.”

It's all about what color lipstick they can put on the pig.

Well what lessons can we draw from Iraq then, Todd? What do the events of the past few years indicate about the future of US foreign policy, and where we should go from here. As I read you, there are hardly any lessons we can draw from Iraq other than:

We should not elect wildly, zealously irrational movement conservatives; and if we do elect these kinds of conservatives, we should avoid military interventions in other countries while they are in office.

Everything else is apparently still on the table. This is depressing. Isn't there anything we have learned that doesn't depend on the weird and anomolous nature of the Bush administration? Are you saying that once the movement conservatives are gone, everything goes back to square one, and none of the debates and tragic events of the past five years will have moved us forward at all?

As far as I can tell, you really don't disagree with Weisberg in any essentials. You just wish he had insisted more on the incorrigible wretchedness of Bush and his government. So that when Weiberg says things could have gone better with better management, your rejoinder is: "Perhaps, but you must recognize that there is no way the Bush administration crazies could ever have performed competently."

Aren't the liberal hawks guilty of anything other than overestimating the capacities of the depolorable Bush administration? Did they display no zealous and irresponsible irrationality of their own?

I thought the single stupidest thing I ever heard with regard to Iraq was David Brooks, on the eve of the Sept 2002 authorization, saying that those Democratic Senators who oppsed the war were 'preventing the flowering of Democracy in Iraq." It neatly encapsulated the willful and puerile romanticism underlying the whole project. Not we have Weisberg saying that we could have succeeded in Iraq, we just needed "better luck." Mr Weisberg would actually sound smarter if he announced that hope should have formed a larger part of our plan.

It's funny that Weisberg didn't seem to tease out one 'minor' detail.

The Kosovo intervention was to...

STOP

a war.

The Iraq invasion was to...

START

a war.

How could such smart Jewish writers be so blind to the obvious?

Gitlin seems to be on to something in his observation that Iraq was more about Israel than the US. Often, the arguments about oil imperialism or military bases miss the mark. If you look at the supporters and rationalizers, the Israel issue is front and center.

I think the reason that otherwise brilliant Jewish thinkers seem to have blinders on - or don't show remorse about 600,000 dead - is that they feel the expenditure of blood and treasure on their holy homeland is PIOUS - the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis and the trillion US dollars are just those eggs you have to break to make your Israel omelete.

I'm coming to realize that there is a quasi spiritual/emotional connection for Jews that is practically ineffable - even if they weren't disingenuous about saying "Hey, it's not about WMD, it's about Israel," I wonder if they could even communicate exactly WHY the connection is so strong. As a Catholic, I wouldn't care all that much if Italy took over Vatican City or something 'like that.' In fact the lack of suitable analogies is telling - what other 'races' or creeds have this sense of dual citizenship? More importantly, what other group makes defense of the 'motherland' priority number one?

Peace? Oil? Stability? 600,000 dead? Yeah, yeah, yeah...but Israel, Israel is what's really important.

From the outset of this war, it was apparent to me that Bush and Co. were delusional (this was once a minority position, but I have more company now), and that the Iraq war was certain to be a disaster, because delusional people are, by definition, not competent. I had no way of knowing exactly what mistakes they were going to make, but I was certain they would not succeed.

Debates about how non-delusional people would have conducted a policy that was based on delusion are not only utterly pointless--they make as much sense as arguing with a crazy person.

Todd Gitlin is spot on. The central political fact of our time is that we are dealing with a President who is a crazy person. If we don't deal with that fact, we are deluding ourselves.

We should not elect wildly, zealously irrational movement conservatives; and if we do elect these kinds of conservatives, we should avoid military interventions in other countries while they are in office.

Aren't the liberal hawks guilty of anything other than overestimating the capacities of the depolorable Bush administration? Did they display no zealous and irresponsible irrationality of their own?

Gitlin isn't as clear as he could be but I see the invisible argument. It is not just the wacko conservative personel that are the problem it is the ideas they advocate and promote. Rejecting the personel is rejecting the ideas.

The irresponsible irrationality of the liberal hawks was not recognizing the reckless nature of the PNAC ideas that demanded the military occupation of Iraq. There was also a big dollop of intellectual narcissism in so much as the Iraq war had to be fought in order to strengthen liberal internationalism. There was this rediculous fear of permanent precedents, the idea that if we turn down an intervention we will turn down all possible future interventions. Rediculous, but I remember that argument being in the forefront of pro war liberal opinion; we need to agree to Iraq to stop the Rawandas of tomorrow. A fear the neo conservatives exploited to the max. The neocons played the liberal intellectual interventionists like violins.

If I were a Weisberg or an Ignatieff I would be mad as hell at being used like this. This seach for a mushy middle by Weisberg tells me that he isn't quite there yet, Bill Kristol still "rules his world". Jacob, leave the abusive boyfriend and come into the light.

There is no one reason, in fact there were no reasons at all for going to war. This president has left a trail of misery and death and destruction for no reason whatsoever. Why? Because in his opinion, "wartime presidents are great presidents." This war is about him - even today his sociopathological narcissism is stunning - his refusal to change course, to correct mistakes (or even acknowledge them) is because he is afraid to appear weak, in his own words, "if I change it, it will look like I'm beginning to change my policy." When his staff finally arranged to tell him he needed to change his policy, he left the meeting early, met with General Casey who was carrying out his policy, and came back in "a buoyant mood." This is truly frightening behavior - he leaves one of the most important meetings of his presidential life, and flies off to seek reassurance and reaffirmation of his policy.

When he did reluctantly agree to reassessing his policy, he did so out of fear that he might have to accept The Iraq Study Group's plan, not because he might be wrong or mistaken in his policy. When he finally met with his commanders at the Pentagon, he told them, "What I want to hear from you is how we're going to win...not how we're going to leave." He not only hasn't "reassessed his policy" he doesn't want to hear any views that would contradict his policy.

Of course the logical question to ask this President is what are we supposed to win? We're not at war with the Iraqi people, we're not there to inflict complete and utter humiliating defeat upon those people, we're not there to expand our territory, so what is there to "win?" We're there and we remain there to vindicate and support one man's mistaken view "that a wartime president is a great president."

This war is about him; about who is loyal to him, who supports him, who agrees with him and who serves him. The Iraqi people are meaningless to him - he neither consults them, seeks advice from them or even acknowledges them as human beings with their own right to self-determination.

This is the sorrow and the pity of this war - that one man, incapable of empathy and compassion for his own people, can inflict so much human misery on another people, and with the complicity and submissiveness of others, resolve to inflict more.

The central political fact of our time is that we are dealing with a President who is a crazy person.

Dammit, Danius - you just opened up the insanity defense! Now we'll never get him impeached!

"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone

Bev,

This is a classic. You ought to send it to a newspaper.

Tom

Thanks, Tom.

Afghanistan demonstrated two things. The enormous power of the American military and the ineptitude of the Bush Administration. Bill Kristol's dismissal of the potential problems between Sunni and Shite Iraqis also demonstrated that the intellectual fathers of this war were never honest with themselves let alone with the American people.

As one who might be described as a liberal hawk, though one who knew Bush was not the one to lead us in war nothing said by Todd or anyone else really disproves that getting with of Saddem was always going to be a failure. It was not necessary to allow the weapons caches and hte borders to be open to all. It also was not necessary allow the chaos that ensued that led the Shite militias to call a halt to their being targeted by Sunnis both Al Qaeda and Iraqi.

Almost from the begining the uniformed military was more interested in the post-Saddem Iraq. They tried to bring democratic votes to Iraqis and were thwarted by Bremer. To indulge in a bit of stereotyping it is a bit strange that the Marines were more concerned with the Iraqis enjoying safety and democracy that were either the Defense Department of the State Department. That was not necesary just sade.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

The Iraq invasion was not wrong because Bushco believed in it - that's just a dopy, borderline McCarthyite argument.

No, it's not. The point here becomes more complicated than is easily limned in a blog exchange. But the gist is that in evaluating the trustworthiness of a statement, you have to take into account what you know about the speaker; the meaning of a statement changes depending on who's saying it. We knew the character and competences of the Bush administration by 2002, and we knew that they were, for instance, prone to conflating different actors into a single "threat"; that they were inexperienced with and suspicious of the diversity and complexity of the world outside the US; that they were ideologically opposed to nation-building, and thus lacked competence at it or familiarity with the issues it involved. They were highly skilled within the world of US partisan politics, but that was the limit of their competence. We knew this. We also knew they had a casual attitude towards hard facts; we knew that since the budget debates in the 2000 campaign. The way that the anti-Iraq campaign developed highlighted all of those weaknesses. In the case of the invasion of Afghanistan, because that response seemed so logical and unsurprising after 9/11, it made sense to support the administration. But when they began making highly speculative arguments for launching a new and unrelated war, one's spidey sense really should have started tingling.

We know now that no administration which did not share this administration's combination of ignorance of foreign affairs, overweening hubris, politics-is-everything indifference to facts or to good policymaking, jingoism, and even religiosity would ever have recommended something like the Iraq war, because it was simply an absurd venture. I think that translating "don't trust a moronic administration" into "don't trust a President with very simplistic and ignorant ideas about the world abroad when he recommends launching a hugely risky war for uncertain ends" would cover much of the ground of lessons that need to be learned here. It would, for that matter, embrace LBJ, too -- another master of domestic US politics whose ideas about foreign affairs and war proved dangerously simplistic.

"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone

nothing said by Todd or anyone else really disproves that getting with of Saddem was always going to be a failure. 

The reason we went to Iraq was 9/11 and al-Qaeda.

Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and al-Qaeda.

Therefore, a failure. 

Dissent Protects Democracy.

I suspect that it was because the crazy idiots convinced the internationalists that they were about to get something for nothing which any con man knows is the essential characteristic of a likely mark.

The enormous power of the American military and the ineptitude of the Bush Administration.

I just don't get this. It demonstrated that a collaboration of US special forces, in theatre intelligence assets and popular indigenous forces could achieve a limited objective very cheaply.

The US was lucky, imo, that the arab-dominated Taliban was so broadly unpopular. People were glad to see foreign rulers tossed out.

Todd or anyone else really disproves that getting with of Saddem was always going to be a failure. It was not necessary to allow the weapons caches and hte borders to be open to all. It also was not necessary allow the chaos that ensued that led the Shite militias to call a halt to their being targeted by Sunnis both Al Qaeda and Iraqi.

The incompetence of the execution of this operation will be cited as a reason to dismiss it as historical evidence that the US cannot successful conduct wars of imperial occupation.

In point of fact, the US cannot conduct wars of imperial occupation, especially without a draft. The 450,000 troops that comes trippingly to Weisberg's keyboard could not have been raised in the pursuit of an imperial conquest. And the pretexts that Bush raised could not have been sustained while that troop buildup took place.

This war was folly from the outset, as every other administration from Reagan on recognized.

What's your point?

You write: "In the case of the invasion of Afghanistan, because that response seemed so logical and unsurprising after 9/11, it made sense to support the administration."

Yet, you take issue with me when I assert: "The Iraq invasion was not wrong because Bushco believed in it [...] The plan was conceptually wrong in its own right".

You can't have it both ways, bud. Either (a) it's acceptable to look at a Bush policy on its merits (which is by your take on Afghanistan), or (b) it's not acceptable because it's a Bush policy (which is your take on Iraq).

You know where I stand. Where do you?

I am a little worried Mr. Howard - that post is a bit close to the neocon/Radical "long war" line of thought - something I would not expect from you.

sPh

I'm referring to the human misery and suffering we've inflicted on others.

I fail to understand why no one seems to remember President Bush's speech of early 2003 and how the country rallyed around:

"My fellow Americans:

"As you are all aware, Saddam Husein and his Baathist Party had nothing whatever to do with the attack we suffered on 9/11. And the UN inspections under the direction of Hans Blix and Baradei have confirmed what we in the United States Government have believed for years. Saddam has no WMD weapons, no active WMD development program, and although he doubtlessly would like to have WMDs, we have the ability to monitor his attempts and destroy his capability to employ WMDs if he should ever obtain them.

"But let us never forget that we do have substantial interests in the Middle East, and here, I speak of the oil pumped from the fields of the Saudi, Kuwaiti, and Bahrani kingdoms and emirates. The greatest threat to those resources comes from the energies unleashed by the Shia Revival in Iran and throughout the Persian Gulf area. And Saddam has been the first to frustrate that enthusiasm on our behalf.

"I know that there are some among you who will argue that these uncontroverted facts suggest that we should not invade and depose Saddam, and I want you to know that I respect your right to hold those views -- irresponsible though they be.

"My study, such as it has been, of American history and my chats with Margaret Thatcher, the Caesar of the Falklands, have convinced me that it is only by leading a nation at war that an incumbent can assure his reelection and a President assure himself a place in history.

"As well, my predecessors -- looking to their own reelection hopes -- have, I am told, made a series of promises to a small, inconsequential state in the Middle East, and that state thinks it would be a grand idea if Saddam was "outta dere."

"Upon all these cogent reasonings I am convinced that you will approve my plans for the invasion of Iraq. I intend to send somewhere between 350,000 and 400,000 soldiers and marines and another 100,000 or so Texican contractors. I anticipate that we will be able to accomplish our goal -- a free and independent and democratic Iraq within 5 years or at the most, seven years. There will, of course, be some military casualties and I estimate that the cost of the war will be approximately $3000 to $3500 per American family -- about 1500 gallons of gasoline or 3 years of driving, 2 if you own two cars -- heh, heh.

"And what's all that balanced against ensuring my reelection?"

That speech ignited the American people; Bush followed through on hios plan; and although it looks like it may take the full 7 years, success seems likely.

I apologize that my question was not responsive to your answer. All misery and suffering? Personally, I am just beginning to recover from an intense allergic reaction to Christmas carols. While I did find one operation on a pinched nerve in my arm, where the surgeon knew me well enough to let me watch, I don't look at hospitals as a place to avoid misery and suffering.

Are you, perhaps, vegan?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Well sure, a war can be both ill-conceived and incompetently fought. Many wars are both.

But the converse of what you say is also true -- to argue that other leadership would have resulted in a better outcome is to deny that the decision to invade was a bad idea from the outset; but there are lots of outcomes that could have been better than the one we have, and still be terrible. We will never know whether, long-term, leaving Saddam in place might have been better than any US invasion, especially one under "other [more competent] leadership that made the same intelligence mistakes/fabrications in lead up".

Sorry, but I find Bruce Webb's post pernicious. I'd love every opportunity to slam the Neocons. I'd even go further, saying not just that a better UN inspection program could have kept arms in check, but that the existing ones were going just fine. But while that's only a minor quibble, I can't accept his blaming this all on support for Israel's interests.

There's no reason to think it's true, other than another cockamamie conspiracy theory. We hear of dreams of US domination. We hear of oil motives. We hear of hope to feed Haliburton's coffers. We hear of Bush's Christian crusade. We hear of further revenge against Iraq since not kicking the pants off them enough the previous time, perhaps even as Bush's Oedipal complex, perhaps not. We hear these and more, and we still haven't got to the bottom of the Neocons or other past GOP theories for imperialism, including Kissinger's realism. We certainly haven't really sorted out what's a fantasy and what's a lie with Bush. But I can't account for this version, frankly, short of anti-Semitism.

It gives undo influence to Israel's supporters as remaking America and making a humongous war. It assumes something hateful fo me, as an opponent of Israel's own right-wing policies, that these are Israel's interest. And then it goes further, by making that concern something akin to treason. I think those of us who want peace in the mideast, especially those of us capable of wishing for a Palestinian state soon and a permanent democratic ally in Israel capable of respecting internally agreed boundaries, should be outraged. What those who support hawks in Israel must think, who themselves are often generally Americans, I can only imagine.

I'll add that it's also annoying because wingnuts already tried blaming opposition to their imperialist dreams on anti-Semitism, and that was evil enough a claim. So it's sad that one is now supposed to agree that it's all about the Jews?

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

Au contraire, mental incompetence is a perfect reason to impeach, if the party does not relinquish power.

Certainly, especially if we'd maintain, in English, the nuanced Islamist distinction between greater/internal and lesser/external jihad.

Of course, changing the name to Struggle On Terrorism might not please GWB with the acronym SOT.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Mr. Gitlin, could you explain the nature of your theory of Beinart exceptionalism. I would think your description: "They are not in the thinking-through game. They are in the hallucinating, fact-bending, reality-canceling game." might apply to Beinart as well.
Or were his repulsive attacks on antiwar progressives part of a much nastier, conscious effort to silence the left?

I already explained this. Your (b) is wrong, that is not my take on Iraq. Look, this is really not hard to understand: if an unbiased, knowledgeable adviser with an honest reputation tells you to make an investment which most other people also think is a good idea, it's probably a good investment. If a poorly informed adviser with a reputation for stretching the truth to make a sale advises you to make an investment which most other people agree is a good idea, you should take a look, think it over, and maybe do it despite the source. But if most people think the investment is a BAD idea, and if he or his friends may stand to gain from your investment, then you'd have to be an idiot to jump in headfirst on that investment. And if, as time goes on, you see that second investment is indeed performing poorly, then that should both confirm your decision and confirm your low opinion of the adviser.

It's all tied in together. You can't say, "Giving that felon in the clown suit a billion dollars to corner the world market in frozen concentrated orange juice turned out to be a terrible investment, but a competent commodities trader might have pulled it off." A competent commodities trader would never have tried it, because it's a dumb idea; and you should have KNOWN it was a dumb idea PARTLY because the guy who recommended it was a felon in a clown suit. But that doesn't mean that if a felon in a clown suit recommends you buy an index-linked mutual fund in a successful developing market, you shouldn't take THAT advice seriously.

"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone

HCBerkowitz:

I didn't mean to 'attack' Jews in general or Israelis for that matter. I think I came off harsher than I intended. Also I'm sure it's an incontrovertible fact that the there is a broader spectrum of opinion on Iraq or Isreal within 'Jewery' the world over as well as within Israel than, say, with evangelical Christians or US Catholics.

I was trying to add nuance to the question by noting that there is a unique connection displayed by some Jewish writers to this spiritual homeland. God literally knows Christians have spilt more blood in the name of Jesus - or reclaiming the holy land - than any other religious group. How much savagery has taken place because of God in general? Most of it. Same with family feuds - there's a sense that words can't convey the 'reasons.' In fact 'drive' or 'instinct' are the operative words. You can't really 'reason' with a powerful drive to defend hearth, home and yes, tribe. Israelis are not abstractions - they are like brothers you defend not because they're 'right' but because they're brothers.

What I'm saying is that there is an undeniable spiritual/emotional connection you see in some - not all - Jewish writers/thinkers/pundits with respect to Israel. I'm even furth asserting that this 'bias' is becoming obvious to me, but it's invisible to the writers (hence it's not strictly bias). It's so powerful because it's 'unconscious.'

Hence, Israeli apologists/defenders aren't a bunch of monsters who'll brook any outrage if it might help Israel. On the contrary the 'drive' to defend Israel seems profoundly pious - it's a moral imperative of the very first order. It operates on an instinctual level (defend the group) and a spiritual level (obey God's Law). Maybe it's like the kid who feels compelled to start fights with the kids in the schoolyard who taunt him about his brother's legal problems (that was me once).

Maybe it's this simple. George Bush took us to war because he wanted to swing his dick around. Flying onto an aircraft carrier wearing a flightsuit with a codpiece wasn't just a cheap PR stunt--it was the whole point.

If there really are 600,000 dead, which I doubt, the vast majority of them were killed by Iraqis. Wanting to establish a Western style democracy was about Israel? Israel can defend itself. It looks increasingly that a number of Arab nations are looking to Israel to denfend them too.

The sanctimony fascinates me. Saddem launched a war with Iran that led to about a million deaths. Saddem invaded Kuwait and might have continued on to Saudi Arabia had the U.S. not stopped him. He then slaughtered Iraqi Shites after he was kicked out of Kuwait. He murdered his two sons-in-law and countless opponents and would be opponents.

His sons were being groomed to take his place. They apparently were even more blood thirsty than their father. The French and the Russians were trying to lift the sanctions. Obviously Saddem was not spending the food for oil program money on his people.

The neo-Cons were arrogant and too idealistic. Their expectation that the Iraqis to just turn to democracy on Saddem's fall was absurd. However, they are certainly more idealistic about what people seek than seeking to scapegoating support for Israel. The reliance on Bush was such a fatal flaw as to be mind boggling.

As for Israel. As the world stood by 6 million Jews were murdered. Thus while until I encountered the relentless anti-Israel drivel here I did pay that much attention to Israeli of late. However, the connection to Israel has something to do about knowing that the end of Israel means the murder of more Jews. This is a fairly emotional issue, on this you are correct.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Your comment is not worth a response. These same old arguments are years-old, and completely full of crap. The Paul Wolfowitz playbook was closed out.

Geez, is it me??? I feel like it's 2003 all over again.

I guess that was a response. So there. 

Dissent Protects Democracy.

Thanks for the response Daniel Greenbaum.

I made the observation to reflect what I consider a recent 'discovery' of mine. We can regard most of the victims of violence around the world as 'interchangeable' or generic ciphers of victimhood. We can say ain't it a shame and something should be done.
But when it's Israelis, we abandon the abstractions. If I'm arguing about Israel with a Jewish person, often the tendency is, "You don't understand, what if YOUR brother/father/sister/mother was attacked by a suicide bomber - you wouldn't be so cavalier about it!" Effective rhetoric, but then again, Palestinians have relatives - Iraqis have relatives. What it does reflect is the "personal" nature of the Israel question. You see faces - somebody you know has a relative in Haifa or something.

With other nations it's kinda "aint it a shame - people shouldn't be killed." The same way that you might argue that a criminal should be released because of police mistakes - but not the one who raped your sister - that's 'different.' Because it's personal and not an abstraction.

Here is the connection between 9/11 and Iraq.

1. Bush was President on 9/11 (thanks to 5 geniuses on the Supreme Court who didn't understand the 14th Amendment).

2. Bush is an idiot.

3. Idiot President Bush invades Iraq because he's an idiot.

That is the connection between 9/11 and Iraq.

Tom

Where is SFC Wallace? Is Sarge for the Surge?

Tom

Please stop conflating "Jews" with "Zionists." I, for one, find that tendentious and pernicious. One can perfectly well and consistently oppose Zionism -- i.e., the ongoing attempt to create an apartheid crusader "Jewish" state in the heart of an Islamic world that utterly rejects it -- without necessarily "oppressing" fellow-American "Jews" (for their supposed "Jewishness") who live in Kansas or Nebraska, let us say. If Zionist Iraelis would move to Kansas and Nebraska tomorrow -- and start paying our taxes instead of demanding lavish (and apparently eternal) subsidies from us -- the "Jewish" question would diasppear from American foreign polic