Iraq - Five Years Later
In a week we will enter the sixth year of our War In Iraq. As some of my correspondents have pointed out the “manufacturing of consent”, first elucidated by Walter Lippmann in Public Opinion, has been marginally successful in that the Pew Center now reports that 53% of the public believe we will ultimately “acheive our goals in Iraq.” Would it be churlish of me to ask what goals?
Would those be President Bush’s goals of a model democracy that causes an spontaneous overthrow of all the authoritarian regimes of the Mid East? William Polk, who lived in Iraq has an answer.
First, of course is a truism that we all share: no people wants to be ruled by foreigners. Often we don’t even want them in our country. But from the American revolution onward, people all over the world have struggled to get foreigners to leave them alone. The Iraqis are not different from Americans on this matter.But there are more pointed reasons. I won’t trouble you with all the details, but will say merely that we have destroyed the social fabric of Iraq. That sense of coherence is the most important attribute of any society. It dwarfs in importance physical things. Without it no society can exist. Consider your own city: it is possible for a small police force to keep order here because your neighbors accept the general order. Were this not the case, order could not be maintained by a whole army. That is the situation in Iraq. 160 thousand heavily armed soldiers plus what remains of the Iraqi army and police and about 20,000 mercenary security people cannot prevent mayhem because the social fabric has been shredded.
Other things matter — hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed, many more have been wounded and still more have lost their homes and livelihoods. Practically speaking, there are very few Iraqis who have not lost a parent, a child, a spouse, a cousin or a neighbor. All observers agree that the Iraqis blame America for these things.
Or would the goal be the defeat of the Insurgency–the tactic Admiral Fallon and the now extolled Counter-Insurgency genius, General Petraeus fell out over? Polk, from his deep experience with the counter-insurgency program we launched in Vietnam, thinks this is a pipe dream.
Comparing them to Vietnam, I began a quest that would lead me to study a dozen other wars and write the book before you, Violent Politics: Terrorism, Guerrilla Warfare and Insurgency from the American Revolution to Iraq. From these experiences and studies I have concluded that most are about shaking off foreign rule.* * *
So what can we do? Consider carefully our position in Iraq. President Bush has said we must “stay the course.” But also remember that we did that in Vietnam for nearly 16 years. Even after the Tet Offensive had shown that we were deluding ourselves with the hope of “victory,” and at least some of us realized that we could not “win,” we stayed and suffered an additional 21,000 casualties.Is there a lesson in this? General David Petraeus tells us there is. He says that what we have been doing in Iraq did not work, but that he has a new formula — Counter Insurgency — that will work. I agree with him that there is a lesson to be learned, but unfortunately it is not the one he identifies.
Why is this? It is simply that the “new” formula he prescribes is the same old one we tried in Vietnam and the same old one the Russians tried in Afghanistan.Listen to the editors of the Pentagon Papers. They had access to everything we learned about the war in Vietnam so their account is the most complete ever compiled on an insurgency. They commented (and I quote) our “program there was, in short, an attempt to translate the newly articulated theory [that was 40 years ago] of counterinsurgency into operational reality. The objective was political though the means to its realization were a mixture of military, social, psychological, economic and political measures. The long history of these efforts was marked by consistency in results as well as in techniques: all failed miserably.”
General Petraeus admits (and again I quote) that “Political power is the central issue in insurgencies and counterinsurgencies; each side aims to get the people to accept its governance or authority as legitimate.”
Can we do that?No, we cannot. In our age of politically conscious people, natives refused to be ruled by foreigners. That is why in our Revolution we threw out the British. The Iraqis today are following the trail we blazed. Napoleon bitterly remembered that his efforts at counterinsurgency cost him his army – Spain was a worse defeat for him, as he remembered in exile, that Russia. De Gaulle almost lost France because of the counterinsurgency of his army and the Secret Army Organization. Greece’s counterinsurgency gave rise to the bitter dictatorship of the Colonels. And so on.
Final potential goal–To make our Energy supply dependable and cheap. Have we achieved that goal?
How much does oil cost? If you are a broker, you can answer immediately, somewhere around $100 dollars a barrel. That should be alarming since it has risen from about $27 since the Iraq war began. And it is generally accepted that each $5 rise per barrel reduces our national income by about $17 billion a year. That is a total of roughly 200 billion dollars.But, that is not a complete figure. Actually, factored into the price of oil are at least two other major costs: the first is what we have to do to create the environment in which we get access (often by bribing governments or nations) and the second is how we protect that access by stationing military forces in the neighborhood. Estimates vary of course but everyone who has looked into this matter agrees, I think, that they cannot be less than 100 billion dollars a year and is probably many times that amount. So the “national” cost of oil is probably already something like $150 or even $200 a barrel.
Einstein said “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. From the Crusades forward, the people of the Mid East have fought foreign occupiers. Empires as powerful as England in the 1880’s have learned the brutal lesson of the futility of occupation. Santayana reminded us that, ”those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
We live in an age of forgetting. The monstrous information flow that washes over us on a hourly basis, pushes out recent events and their lessons and fills our minds with new obsessions: Spitzer, Ferraro, Spears, Market Meltdown. The fact that men and women are dying and being maimed in their loyal service to a fatally flawed policy is soon pushed off our TV screens and the front pages of our newspapers. Communications scholars have long understood the power of governments to persuade by obfuscation and fear. If the coming election is to serve the purpose of renewing our commitment to Lincoln’s government “of the people, by the people and for the people”, then we must not forget our brothers and sisters dying on the plains of Iraq. We are in the role of British Redcoats and Hessians on the commons of Concord, Massachusetts 232 years ago. We must take our soldiers out Iraq and let the Iraqi people decide their own fate.
Comments (24)
Tuesday's New York Times' front page headline news was not encouraging: Bomber Kills 5 U.S. Soldiers in Iraq’s Capital. Seems like the minute they let down their guard in an upscale neighborhood that seems to have been adequately "surged," the sucicide bombers reappear.
Of course, that news was pushed to the left side of the Times' front page for a 4-column spread on "Spitzer, Linked to A Sex Ring as A Client, Gives an Apology."
And not a mention on TPM itself, which used to venture beyond Dem politics 24/7. I must admit that looking over the posts at TPMCafe on Tuesday, I was reminded of my teen years, when everyone had learned to ignore the daily news report from Vietnam because it was just too dreadful and repetitive to confront.
P.S. I found this Feb. 23 report on Basra after Brit withdrawal:
Ominous Signs Remain in City Run by Iraqis to be a depressing harbinger of what we might have to look forward to.
March 13, 2008 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Think about the word "Democracy" for a minute, then consider what it means.
Now, look at the "Democracy" Bush/Cheney created for themselves and their cohort here in the USA.
March 13, 2008 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
In the Polk excerpts above there is much said about what won't work, but no clue as to what Polk recommends be done. But on the Juan Cole blog Polk is quoted: So, should we just as President Bush says, “cut and run.” No, as he would describe such a policy, it would not be either to our interests nor to those of the Iraqis. . .I have laid out . . a detailed, carefully costed out and phased program . . .I believe will work. . .first, it provides for a replacement for our troops by a “multinational stability force”-- William R. Polk
The problem is that Polk's discussion of insurgencies doesn't apply to Iraq, where we don't have an insurgency -- an uprising against a government -- but rather armed resistance to a foreign military occupation. So what does Polk suggest? Replacing the US military occupiers with multi-national ones. Won't work, even if some countries were willing to provide forces, which they aren't. Foreign military occupiers don't bring stability, they bring instability, which incidentally has been used by the US government to justify further occupation. It's a self-fulfilling strategy for the war profiteers.
So, yes, the Taplin formula is correct: "We must take our soldiers out Iraq and let the Iraqi people decide their own fate" and not engage in silly talk about replacing them with others.
March 13, 2008 8:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
@artappraiser.There is a pretty good discussion about this, including the points you made over at my regular blog
http://jtaplin.wordpress.com/2008/03/13/iraq-five-years-later/
March 13, 2008 8:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
"First, of course is a truism that we all share: no people wants to be ruled by foreigners...But from the American revolution onward, people all over the world have struggled to get foreigners to leave them alone."
And before the American Revolution...what? People were content to be ruled by foreigners?
"we have destroyed the social fabric of Iraq."
Saddam was a great maintainer of the social fabric? This is a nonsense.
"Final potential goal–To make our Energy supply dependable and cheap. Have we achieved that goal?"
The price of oil is rising for two reasons - because demand is increasing much faster than supply, and because the dollar is failing. Had we been willing to let Saddam keep Kuwait he MIGHT have been able to produce more oil but whether that would have translated into cheaper oil for the West is extremely problematic. Nor is it likely that a stronger Saddam would have resulted in a stronger dollar.
People have been ruled by foreigners throughout human history...and they will continue to be. What is a foreigner? Is a native defined by legal citizenship...or by language, culture, ethnicity? Are countries with significant minorities naturally cohesive...or are they kept together by the military might of the majority?
Is the author serious or is he writing a polemic? Clearly the latter I would say because - over at the Guardian - I find that lefties consistently say that many minorities do not need or deserve their own county - and they are particularly adament about it when speaking of Jews.
March 14, 2008 1:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
* I suspect that before the revolution, people didn't like being ruled by foreigners either. Since the revolution, this has also been true. It got especially true in the 20th century. I suspect it's extremely true in Iraq.
* we have destroyed the social fabric of Iraq."
Saddam was a great maintainer of the social fabric? This is a nonsense.
I can't say that Saddam was a great maintainer of the social fabric in that he was a Jeffersonian Democrat like Ahmad Chalabi. At best he was a pseudo-stalinist, a thug and a mass murderer.
But so what? We're not talking about Saddam's effects on Iraq, which were undoubtedly disruptive, destructive and corrosive. The equivalent to a thug slowly trashing the place.
We're talking about America's effects on Iraq, which are monstrous, relentless and profoundly damaging. The equivalent to some lunatic throwing gasoline around and lighting fires.
If you want to go talk about what a cheap thug Saddam Hussein was... well go ahead. But that's not the subject of the conversation and you know it. Throwing Saddam in is simply a cheap attempt to derail the conversation from things you know are true... and that truth is the devastation and havoc wreaked on Iraqi society by the United States.
If you actually had a defense there, if you had a reasonable claim that the United States was not destructive to Iraq's society, you'd be making it. You don't have an argument, so you're just throwing up a smokescreen of chaff.
And you're not even doing it very well.
What's your argument... "Forget about who broke your legs with a baseball bat and ran you over with his car... let's talk about that guy who gave you herpes."
On what planet is your line of nonsense taken seriously?
*"Final potential goal–To make our Energy supply dependable and cheap. Have we achieved that goal?"
The price of oil is rising for two reasons - because demand is increasing much faster than supply, and because the dollar is failing. Had we been willing to let Saddam keep Kuwait he MIGHT have been able to produce more oil but whether that would have translated into cheaper oil for the West is extremely problematic. Nor is it likely that a stronger Saddam would have resulted in a stronger dollar.
Let's recap: "Have we achieved that goal?" Choices: Yes or No. Answer, non-responsive blather. Real answer: No.
Let's take a look at the blather. The escalation in price of oil is tied to demand rising faster than supply... only partly true. Our hero ignores the effect of oil speculation, which is responsible for a large share of the rise. Our hero also ignores the effect of the chronic destabilization brought to Iraq and to the Region by the American military adventure. He ignores the effect of the reduction of Iraq's oil exports not on the worldwide market supply, but on the spot market which sets the price. And he ignores the fact that oil prices are set, not just by current demand, but by anticipation, projections of both future demand and future supply... which projections of future supply are affected by Bush's imperial blunders.
He also acknowledges the drop in the value of the dollar, but given the massive disproportion between the shift in value of the dollar and the rise of oil prices... I think our little friend is being a little mischievous with us.
Finally, note our little friend's waving the bloody shirt. "Had we let Saddam keep Kuwait..." wtf?
*People have been ruled by foreigners throughout human history...and they will continue to be. What is a foreigner? Is a native defined by legal citizenship...or by language, culture, ethnicity? Are countries with significant minorities naturally cohesive...or are they kept together by the military might of the majority?
Let's hear it for that rousing paen to might makes right and imperial splendor. All them darkies were happy, jes' happy, to have sum whyte men rulin' over em. Why, the Mau Mau, they was an appreciation society. Them American colonists... well, that was jest a misunderstanding. All those revolts and revolutions and uprisings the last few hundred years... indigestion.
Yeah. Right. Whatever.
* Is the author serious or is he writing a polemic? Clearly the latter I would say because - over at the Guardian - I find that lefties consistently say that many minorities do not need or deserve their own county - and they are particularly adament about it when speaking of Jews.
And here, our noble, intrepid wingnut (and I use the term as an endearment) wrestles with the question of whether the aforementioned Mr. Tappin is serious or merely writing a polemic... because polemics, we all know, are never serious, but are actually a form of sketch comedy, satire, joke or jape. Our wingnut, knowing this, therefore makes a clever literary allusion.
Sadly, our wingnut is unable to discern whether the piece is serious or some form of humour on the strength of its own text. Thus, he must resort to his encyclopedic knowledge of 'lefties'. With the lazy divinitation of Mycroft Holmes, he is able to make a generalization that lefties are against minorities having their own country, and therefore Mr. Tappin must be writing a polemic.
Bravo, I say, bravo. Huzzah! More, more.
This is rare idiocy indeed. It reminds me of that strange and exotic madagascar flower that blooms only once a generation and exudes a stench of rotting meat.
Hopefully, we'll see much more of 'offensivetoyou' than that.
March 14, 2008 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Suffering you an apopletic attack of self-righteousness, Valdron. Well, sorry, I don't do therapy.
March 14, 2008 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Valdron,
excellent rebuttal.
His opening was a classic right wing tactic, the straw man:
"People were content to be ruled by foreigners?"
"Saddam was a great maintainer of the social fabric?"
March 15, 2008 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Iraqi society has been a disaster for ages. Saddam gassed the Kurds and attempted to destroy their culture, killing tens of thousands, forbidding instruction in their language, driving them off their lands and replacing them with Arabs. He began a 10 year war with Iran which was conducted with terrific brutality, resulted in more than a million deaths, and enormous destruction.
Valdron minimizes this and you don't even notice.
We did not go into Iraq to save Iraqis. We went there primarily to send a message to the entire Muslim world that we were prepared to do what was necessary to defeat the Islamists.
March 15, 2008 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't minimize anything, I just don't cater to dishonest bullshit.
Sad thing is, that's all you've got to offer.
Considering that the result of going into Iraq is over four million refugees, ethnic cleansing, civil war, more foreign invasions, ascendance of Iranian influence, and by some estimates as much as a million extra dead Iraqi's... I can pretty much agree that we have succeeded in the goal of not saving Iraqi's.
The United States has not saved Iraqis to a far greater and vaster extent than British, Baathists, Ottomans and anyone else has ever managed to not save Iraqis.
You really are just pathetic, aren't you?
We went there primarily to send a message to the entire Muslim world that we were prepared to do what was necessary to defeat the Islamists.
By letting Osama Bin Laden walk at Tora Bora, floundering around in Afghanistan, and invading one of the few secular arab nations that, bad as it was, was a sworn enemy of Islamists.
Of course, if you mean what you say, then all your blather about Saddam is utterly irrelevant isn't it. It didn't matter whether Saddam was a good guy, a bad guy, whether Iraq was well run or badly run. It didn't matter about Iraq at all. You didn't care about Iraq.
It was all about sending a message to Islamists.
I bet it really burns your ass that FDR didn't respond to Pearl Harbour by invading Portugal... to send a message to the Chinese.
ROTFL.
Did I already say pathetic? Allow me to repeat myself.
:D
March 16, 2008 12:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're not stupid but you're so consumed with self-righteous anger that you are unable to be civil and are blinded to opposing points of view.
I didn't address my last post to you because I considered you to be hopeless...but apparently you take an interest in my views so I'll try once again.
Taplin lists 3 goals which were - supposedly - the point of the Iraq war; establishnment of a democracy in Iraq, defeat of the insurgency, a cheap and dependable energy supply. He claims that we have failed to achieve all three, and that we never could and never will achieve those goals by military means...and he bases these claims almost entirely on the opinions of William Polk.
In my first reply I said I don't share Taplin's esteem for Polk's views...because Iraqi society was a mess long before we got there, and because I believe leaving Saddam in power would have made our situation much worse than currently. Much, much worse.
Polk further argued that our approach was terminally flawed because no people will ever allow foreigners to freely rule them. I responded in two ways. First, so what? Peoples have been ruled by foreigners throughout human history and will continue to be. It's costly, but often profitable anyway...or at least less costly to the foreign power than the available alternatives. Second. The left is inconsistant in its argument. In particular, Jews are not said to need or deserve their own country.
Your first response? We are so much worse for Iraqis than Saddam was that it is criminal to make the comparison. And. The oil price rise, supply instability, and falling dollar are a RESULT of our actions. We not only failed to achieve this goal, we actually made our worst fears real.
I think I deserve a medal for re-reading your bilious crap and summarizing it so neatly but I don't think you have either the wit or manners to see it that way.
I then pointed out to JohnW411 that you had minimized Saddam's destructiveness and Taplin had seriously misunderstood our mistated our purposes.
Your response? Even ruder, and with less content, than your first. You just repeat the same tired crap; We're the worst, the worst, the worst. We let Osama go through incompetence. Saddam was a sworn enemy of Al Qaeda. We didn't care about Iraq (which is a complete distortion of my "We didn't go into Iraq to save Iraqis").
So, tell me, why should I respond again? I'm not a saint and you don't deserve another civil response. If I give you what you deserve I'll just get banned because, after all, this is a liberal site and I am held to a higher standard of civility than you - mostly because your fellow liberals can't even recognize your incivility.
March 16, 2008 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL. Therapy? You should consider it, might do you some good.
But really, all you need is a clue. Hope you get one someday.
ROTFL
March 14, 2008 7:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh boo hoo hoo.
You've chosen a combative and obnoxious nickname, you pepper you comments with disparaging references to lefties and liberals, you employ a variety of dishonest debating tactics, you react with ad hominem attacks when challenged...
And you accuse me of lack of civility?
I think that shows an astonishing lack of self awareness, and am amazing disregard for your own offensive and childish behaviour. Now stop sniveling. No one likes a whiner.
That's evasive and dishonest. First of all, the state of Iraqi society may or may not have been a mess, but that wasn't a license to go in and inflict more damage.
Let me put this in terms even your pea brain can understand. The fact that a woman has loose morals isn't a license to rape her. Or maybe you disagree. Maybe you are that bloodthirsty and contemptible.
On a larger sense, there are real problems with the argument that the state of Iraqi society was a mess.
Iraq was under the rule of a tyrannical dictatorship and repressive police state. It's infrastructure and economy was suffering under the weight of sanctions. One can qualify that as a mess.
However, that mess doesn't legitimize causing a greater mess. Massively degrading the infrastructure, causing a breakdown in civil society, destroying entire cities, crippling the economy, producing four million refugees, as many as a million victims... you can't justify that by saying 'it was already broken, so its okay if I smash it into a million pieces.'
That's the attitude of a spoiled child. It's a contemptible position in a debate. And you know it.
For which proposition you have offered no proof whatsoever. No, no, no proof whatsoever.
If you're going to rely upon counterfactuals, you are at least obliged to make some sort of case.
You can't simply trust in your arrogance and smarmy condescension to win the day.
In any case, I detect the usual slippery logic. Iraq is a mess, but leaving him would have made "our" situation. So much for your tender care for the Iraqis.
It's not a terribly good argument though. And its not terribly thought through. Once again, its the argument of a spoiled child, based on impulse, selfishness and a basically superficial reading hof history.
Your notion is that peoples have been ruled by foreigners throughout history is, at best, an awkward and sloppy reading of history.
I could go on at length, in terms of a long historical record of empires and their disintegration, the continuing tug of centrifugal forces. But I'll simply note a couple of points: 1) The trend in the 20th century was towards the irreversible rejection of foreign rule; 2) The trend since at least the 18th century has been for domestic insurgency campaigns to repel foreign occupiers - the Netherlands from Spain, the Colonies from Britain, Spain from Napoleon, Greece from the Turks, Latin America from Spain... all the way up to Vietnam from America and Afghanistan from Russia.
Look, its fine to reject a sloppy historical generalization. But the proper response is not to come up with an even sloppier historical generalization.
Of course, that wasn't an argument that Tappin or Polk was making, and you knew it. If it was a view previously expressed by Tappin or Polk, you didn't bother to cite.
Instead, it was an entirely 'out of left field' attack, to use the baseball term. It was an untenable and offensive generalisation, founded in prejudice.
You thought an obnoxious cheap shot at the entire left was going to help your case. It only paints you as a narrow minded bigot prone to idiot generalization.
You point out towards the end that "this is a liberal site". Did you really think that you could treat your audience with such dishonest contempt.
Why should anyone respond to such a slur with anything but contempt?
Seriously.
How is it that you think you do not deserve the back of the hand for a remark like that?
Seriously.
Dude. It's the internet. My response is right there. I'll quote it for you:
Let me make it clear for you, since you have such trouble with reading comprehension.
Saddam wasn't relevant to Tappin/Polk's argument with respect to America's destruction of Iraq.
You made the assertion, but you never bothered to support it. Instead, you whine when someone challenges it.
Well, sorry, but life doesn't work like that. If you want to make an assertion, support it.
I took the fact that you couldn't be bothered as evidence that you had nothing, and therefore your assertion was worthless.
But of course, once again, you couldn't be bothered to actually support any of your assertions.
You just assumed that everyone would happily bathe in the golden droplets of your wisdom from your contemptuous vantage point on Mount Olympus.
And you never wonder why people don't like being pissed on.
ROTFL. This is classic. Do you mind if I print it and put it up on the wall? Such an overweening combination of vitriol, self regard, pompous preening and petty dishonesty is rare. And of course, I love that final condescending slur, combined with a rising note of self pity that the mean old liberals are unable to recognize your brilliance. Are you 12 years old by any chance?
Never mind. Let me tell you who you are: In your are the 'enlightened' Conservative here to show 'liberals' and 'leftists' the error of their ways with your clear vision, your unassailable arguments and your unerring ability to cut through liberal sophistry. However, for some reason, the liberals and leftists who have received the benefit of your wisdom are not rolling over to have their tummies scratched, instead, they seem ungrateful and unpersuaded, to which strange behaviour you attribute their deep communist Manchurian candidate style conditioning, and their ugly and hateful natures. In reality, what you are is a spoiled, hateful, obnoxious little boy who approaches his audience with transparent contempt, and whose arguments are full of distortions, lies, transparent evasions and a host of inept and obvious rhetorical dishonesties, whose insights are utterly shallow and superficial, whose arrogance blinds him to the implications of his own facts.
The biggest laugh with you is that you think you're special. Sorry, trolls like you are a dime a dozen. Now run along to your mother.
March 17, 2008 9:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
">This is Polk's assessment of our Iraq problem in February 1999, just a year and a half before 911. Read it and learn something.
March 17, 2008 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://misnomer.dru.ca/2003/01/31/iraq_a_new_leaf.html
March 17, 2008 1:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah well, at least you're making some sort of effort. Okay, let's go and take a look at Polk.
First, I notice that although he acknowledges the Reagan/Bush era of cooperation and partnership with Iraq, he glosses completely over the economic issues raised by the Iran/Iraq war. Instead, Saddam's financial issues are some sort of hubris, true in a broad sense, but misleadingly framed. I also note that he ignores the history of Iraq/Kuwait disputes, particularly that of Kuwait's tapping Iraqi oil fields. And he ignores the pretty obvious blundering by April Glaispie that gave a green light to the invasion of Kuwait. But fair is fair, the middle east is a complicated place and I don't expect everyone to get it all.
Second, I notice that Polk is spectacularly wrong on the whole subject of wmd's and inspections. As it turns out, there were no wmd's. There weren't even viable wmd programs. It's clear that Polk conceives the Rumsfeldian blunder of imagining that the absence of wmd's, in view of Saddam's perfidy, must be proof that they exist. A lot of people thought this way, including people who should have known better. Polk betrays an unseemly degree of certainty, which is now embarrassing to him.
In any case, Polk proceeds to go through a fairly arbitrary list of responses to Saddam Hussein, and finds himself unhappy with all of them. Most instructive is this part:
Humourously, I find myself observing that hindsight is not Polk's friend. His complacency about wmd is matched by complacency of ease of rebuilding. Wrong, and spectacularly wrong on both points.
Ahmad Chalabi? Apparently, Polk wasn't quite foolish enough to take such men at face value.
Wrong again, obviously. But Polk was correct about the quagmire. He was correct about the lack of support of exile leaders. He was correct about indigenous resistance, the money and the cost in lives. And he was right about the quagmire.
In the end, despite his paranoia about wmd's, Polk advocates a process of working towards stability and detente in the region to 'tame' Iraq and balance Iran. It's not a wholly unreasonable proposal, but we should note that the entire thrust of his article is essentially furthering the agenda of that proposal.
It's also pretty much moot. Would that particular foreign policy approach have worked? Possibly, but we'll never know.
I'm puzzled by your reference to 'just a year and a half before 9/11'. There's no connection between Iraq and 9/11, that's so obvious its trite. And there's no operational connection between Iraq and Al Quaeda. So what does it matter?
Overall, I'm not sure why you've even bothered to link to this article, in view of the thrust of your arguments (such as they are). It doesn't seem to be in particular support of anything you are arguing or asserting.
Polk says that 'Saddam is a bad guy.' Well... okay. And fish swim in water, dogs bark, cats pur and water is wet. On the other hand, Polk acknowledges that despite these many faults, Saddam has settled his border disputes with Syria, Turkey and Jordan peacably enough, that he extricated himself from the Iran war. That he runs the country effectively enough, apart from piling up ruinous debts. He's a brutal, murderous, miserable thug with all that, but not irrational.
March 17, 2008 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
First, lets look at the words you use to describe Polk's argument; "glosses completely, misleadingly framed, spectacularly wrong, complacency about wmd , wasn't quite foolish enough, unseemly degree of certainty, paranoia about wmd's"
Polk doesn't have a provocative name, hasn't disparaged liberals, hasn't been insulting in any way. Yet you feel free to essentially speak down to him - casually assuming that the reader will sure your high opinion of yourself and your arguments, not noting how rude and condescending you, apparently by nature, are.
Second, I specifically chose this article by Polk because I was pretty sure of your reaction to it. So I ask you...if you have so low an opinion of Polk here why should you credit him when Taplin cites him in support of his (Taplin's arguments)? That he agrees with you there but not formerly is a piss-poor reason.
Third. The specifics.
He does not gloss over Saddam's financial issues. He just views them in a way you don't like - so you say he misleadingly framed them.
He does not ignore the history of the Iraq/Kuwait disputes. He says - repeatedly - that Iraqis had long viewed Kuwait as a legitimate part of their country and goes to great pains to cite examples. He does not mention the drilling by Kuwait that you mention. I don't know why. Do you? I doubt it.
He does not ignore April Glaspie's blundering. In fact, he characterizes what happened as a "spectacular blunder" by the United States. He, however, says the details are still unclear and does not rush to blame Glaspie. Perhaps the truth is now known but it clearly wasn't when he wrote the article. Another example of YOUR spectacular hubris.
I notice that Polk is spectacularly wrong on the whole subject of wmd's and inspections. As it turns out, there were no wmd's.
Here, again, you are spectacularly wrong...and completely misunderstand Polk's argument...which was that inspections are a spectacularly inadequate means of detecting wmds. Hindsight, of course, is wonderful in that it can make the biggest fool look like a genius and the greatest genius, a fool.
You think Polk's list of reasonably likely responses was arbitrary. Polk - as Taplin takes great pains to point out - was emminently qualified to make such judgments. Your qualifications are?
He was not "complacent" about wmd. What he said was that to only way to be sure was to send in ground troops, and he was very specific about this. Nor can you take his "ease of rebuilding" out of context and truly understand him. He said rebuilding would be easy but creating a new political climate terribly difficult. The only way to read that intelligently is to give him credit for intelligence; he foresaw that political difficulties could make rebuilding (which would be technically easy without those difficulties) difficult or impossible.
You're right. Polk wasn't foolish enough to take men such as Chalabi "at face value" or to discount them at face value without the benefit of hindsight, either.
March 17, 2008 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh my, more pathetic whining? How utterly dreary.
Should I bother to read your pathetic squeals of outrage? Should I bother wading through more intellectually dishonest drudge? Might be good for a laugh.
Mmmm maybe later. I have a bathroom to finish wiring.
Oh by the way, you might want to actually fix your html, did you mean to make everything in that block a quote? Or is it merely the sloppiness you bring to everything else.
March 17, 2008 7:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Whine, whine, whine. A person who has made it his byword to be rude and condescending deigns to give me tips. Yeah, whatever.
What is it with you and Polk anyway? Are you blowing him? Is this it, some lovers quarrel, the way you run hot and cold on the guy?
Here's the thing with Polk. He ventures opinions. These opinions are tested. If they fail, so be it. If time explodes them... well, that's the end of that game.
Polk made several profoundly unrealistic assumptions about Iraq's wmd's and weapons inspection. These assumptions were made in a vaccuum. Instead of thinking, instead of exercising judgement, instead of employing any kind of critical thought, he simply went on the basis of received wisdom... parroting back the prejudices of the day... oh, and he went right up to the line of outright racism, if he didn't cross over it.
I should treat this with respect?
Hmmm.
Don't think I will.
I think the real story of Polk, and of you, and of most of the American chattering class is just how profoundly thin your level of discourse is.
I sit back and watch, and I'm pretty sure that you lot couldn't find your way to a bathroom and back without a map. It's this utter lack of substance, this tedious self involvement, this inability to think critically, to attend to facts not of your liking, that leads to one disaster after another.
The truth is, I really don't see much difference between you and these liberals and leftists you loathe so much. Oh, I admit it, there are differences. You're slimier by far. You're much more dishonest. You're full of infantile rage. You are more malicious in your petty cocoon of obliviousness. In this respect you're much more contemptible. But strip that away... lol
My advice to you is to get a life. Get a job. Read real books instead of the masturbatory fevers of second rate hacks jerking each other off. Go out and spend time in the real world. Let your balls drop and lose that pampered, smooth moon faced look that seems to be the uniform standard of so many of your ilk.
Sadly, it may be that you're such an infant that none of that might do any good.
On the other hand, I'm willing to bet that you were a fool way back when. And it's pretty obvious you're a fool now. So... hindsight, not working out with you?
And in point of fact, you're wrong. Idiotically so, and you apparently haven't noticed.
Let me provide you with a bit of history, cupcake.
Inspections were discontinued in 1998. Saddam did not kick the inspectors out, as myth would have it. Rather, Clinton withdrew inspectors in order to commence operation Desert Fox, which was to punish Saddam Hussein for not cooperating. It was also accompanied by an act proposing regime change, so... Saddam declined to continue cooperating.
Of course, there was plenty of evidence through 1996 and onwards that the weapons inspections had worked. There were highly placed defectors who were testifying as to the end of wmd's. There was all sorts of evidence as to the validity and success of inspections during the sanctions period.
And when it was in their interests, American politicians and statesmen had no problem saying so. Both Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice in 2001 announced that Iraq had been conclusively disarmed, there were no wmd's.
In fact, inspections systems might be imperfect. But they do have a fairly successful track record.
Instead, however, the United States, and Polk and everyone else made the same mistake. They mistook the absence of evidence for evidence of presence.
Polk, for his part, adopted the common paranoia without a thought, and added a dollop of borderline racism.
And of course, Bush based on fabricated evidence, begged, borrowed, stolen and manufactured, concocted a moral hysteria based on fearmongering, and ratcheted that common paranoia right up...
How many thousands of people died for that little oops? I don't imagine it matters much to you, safe in your cocoon, thinking your great big important thoughts.
Is my amused contempt for you leaking through again? Oops. I'm sorry, it's just that you're so... contemptible. Amusingly so. You're such a hateful little worm, I can't help but smile.
Oh, and what's this?
Ouch. Watch that potty mouth, little missy. At least until you learn proper HTML. I'd certainly hate for people to think that was me.
Yeah. The Supreme Court appointed a ball bearing moron to the Presidency who decided to ignore Al Quaeda and appoint people who were almost as oblivious and incompetent as he was. At that point, it was pretty much a given.
Ah, but that's where you are mistaken, Sunshine. I'm not a Liberal. A Liberal would listen to your pathetic whining. A Liberal would respect your assinine opinions. A Liberal would tolerate you.
I'm a Conservative.
I'm the real thing.
And that's a problem for you, because you're not. You are a pretender. You have no values, no backbone, you have no principles. There's nothing to you apart from empty endless whining, a selfish mean spirited snivelling. Your empty, vacant, vacous selfishness and endless flight from any form of responsibility or accountability. Worms like you have taken the name of conservatism, devalued it, dragged it down into the mire. You've taken something that meant something real, and you've made it a joke. You're not a man. You're a drag queen, flouncing around, an empty degenerate parody.
Let me tell you something, you pathetic little second-rate reptile, the only thing that saves you from bottomless contempt is that I find you mildly amusing.
But only mildly.
March 17, 2008 9:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I find it difficult to concentrate on HTML when dealing with someone like you...but if HTML problems do indeed measure something else then this site should be shut down.
March 17, 2008 7:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Always the whiny excuses.
It's what I like about you.
;)
March 17, 2008 10:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
You think Polk's list of reasonably likely responses was arbitrary. Polk - as Taplin takes great pains to point out - was emminently qualified to make such judgments. Your qualifications are?
March 17, 2008 10:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I already know about your personality defects and you know about mine. Do you have anything of substance to show me or don't you...because, frankly, nothing you've said so far stands up to scrutiny. I ask because you speak well and I keep hoping to learn something.
March 17, 2008 11:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I said
to which you responded
and
You should have said ALL politicians. The Russians notified Washington in November of 2001 that Al Qaeda might have obtained a 10 kiloton nuclear device, probably from somewhere in the former Soviet Union...and bin Ladin claimed, on Pakistani TV in November, that he indeed had such a device.
Common sense tells one that inspections cannot be very good given the multiple failures of intelligence and law enforcement everywhere in every area. And, given the stakes, even very good is not good enough. But common sense is not your strongpoint. That's for sure.
I may have mistaken you for a liberal but my dislike of you is personal, just as yours is of me. But I, at least, can see some of your better points and do not take my view of you all that seriously. You do...and you are wrong. I am a big man. Not a giant. But big, lean, and strong. I do not have a smooth, baby face. And I am not a conservative. I am a cantankerous curmudgeon. I learn best by challenging others and I do the same thing on conservative sites as I do here; irritate the shit out of people.
March 18, 2008 4:43 AM | Reply | Permalink