27th September 2003, 6:47 PM
This isn't exactly on subject, but its been quite a long time since I talked politics so I just can't help myself... and this is actually trying to be short. :)
We are in a bad situation in Iraq.
First... this cannot be compared to an actual war like the Civil War. Its got to be compared to other occupations... Vietnam? Interesting comparison in some ways, sure... but there there was a stroing organized resistance, an 'enemy' we could fight... here that isn't there.
Now, are the casualties so high that we should leave or something? No way! We may have been total idiots to go in the way we did, but once we're in we are in. We can't quit now... it would be a total disaster for both the Iraqi people and the world at large.
One comment first. I know I've said it before... but its the obvious truth.
This administration was blinded before the war by its hopes. There is no better way to describe it. They looked at the situation, but did not see what was actually happening... they looked, and were blind. They looked at a Islamic nation with a secular government that was harsh and cruel. They said, 'this is a threat'... and decided to take it out. Of course the ratings boost was a big part too, and the big contracts for friends... but just as much it was about delusions of the people in control of this country. There is no better term to describe their thoughts...
I mean, how could they have thought that the Iraqis would be overjoyed to see us and that that feeling would be the prevalent, long-term opinion? How could they? Now, I admit... Iraq is in many ways better off than it was. And Iraqis DO say that they think they are better off now and that it is good Sadaam fell (66%)... but ever-increasing numbers hate us almost as much. This really should NOT have been a surprise, given all the circumstances! All they had to do was look at the middle east, see how the opinion of the US is about as low as it could possibly go, and see that these people won't stay gratified for long! And especially not when you completely and totally bungle the post-war phase of the war...
See, if you go to war you must be ready for what happens when it is over. For many generations we have known this... for those reasons, we let the Japanese Emperor stay in power when they surrendered in World War II. We didn't force Germany to pay for WWII like we had WWI (with disasterous consequences). And in 1991, we formed a strong cooalition to push Sadaam out of Kuwait.
Now, the first President Bush did many things wrong... but compared to his son, he was actually a good president in some ways. See, he understood the value of international relationships. He did not want to foot the huge bill for the war to come, so he got nearly everyone in the world to help. Now, did we do almost all the fighting? Yes... but the world paid for it! That is KEY. The world paid.
This Bush? He assumed that they would be happy and quickly peaceful... that they would have half this many troops in Iraq by now... that Sadaam had chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons... that Sadaam had strong ties to Al Quaida... that Sadaam helped fund or plan 9/11. As we know now, all of those ideas were totally wrong. Totally and completely beyond any shadow of a doubt.
But he assumed those things, and said for 18 months how all of those things (exceping the 9/11 ties, which he never actually said but just let people imply) were the facts... I'm sure that he eventually convinced himself that they WERE true, though anyone looking at all the facts would know otherwise (as the CIA tried to tell them many times). So what did he do? He spurned the UN, insulted it so many ways so many times, made false accusations of its uselessness... And took almost the whole burden of the war on our shoulders. And now when it backfired and bit us... he asks the UN for money (like the speech last week). But by now he is far too proud to do what it would take to actually get significant contributions from the international community.
See, what sane nation would send its men to fight and probably die, or even its money to build a nation, when the people acceping the money won't let them do so much as have any influence on what that contribution will ultimately do? Why should France and Germany contribute troops and money when we won't let them have the tiniest bit of control over the nation they would risk so much to support? It makes no sense! But by now Bush is far too far on his 'I hate the UN' platform and will never back down... so we pay it all. All $75 or so billion that has already been spent, and all $87 billion that will be spent over the next year, and all of the many, many billions after that...
Yes, ridding the world of Sadaam did us all a favor. But at this cost, it was not worth it. Now, had Bush formed a true international cooalition like his father did, and had a compelling, proven reason to go to war like we usually do when invading a nation, I would probably not have opposed this war... I didn't oppose the first Gulf War, or Kosovo, or Bosnia... but it just met none of the criteria for a sane war, or even a sane peacekeeping operation! Bush has 1) put a massive bill on our shoulders; 2) alienated the rest of the world, making it near-impossible to get their help (that we so desperately need) unless we change our entire government policy on the region; 3) lied consistently to the world for 18 months or more about Iraq when if he had truly investigated the facts and looked at them face on and allowed himself to accept them (I'm sure that he knew the actual truth, but wouldn't admit it to anyone, possibly not even himself...) he would have known better; 4) put a massive occupation on our shoulders, requiring many tens of thousands of men for some uncertain period of time that certainly will be years; 5) abandoned Afghanistan (a much more just war) and allowed it to be completely taken over by the warlords, bringing the chances for that nation to truly change to near-zero, and refused to allow the one thing that would truly help there (international peacekeepers in the whole nation, not just the capitol); 6) given us a gift of the US's biggest budget deficit of all time (and maybe the biggest one percent-wise as well, maybe topping the ones under Reagan); etc, etc, etc...
...
Anyway... the situation in Iraq now. It's dangerous. Our people are dying. Is it as bad as Vietnam? No. But our troops are vulnerable... Iraq is now a magnet to all the anti-American suicide bombers and terrorists in the Middle East! I know we must stay... but its bad. We badly, BADLY need help from other nations to share the burden... and I think that if the Iraqis saw that we weren't just occupiers and were rebuilding their nation in a UN-led international cooalition they would feel better about the situation and the (strong and growing) popular support for the terrorists in the nation would drop. Middle Easterners don't hate Europeans nearly as much of us, and sharing the burden would be a big, big help... to the Iraqis, the Middle Easterners, the Europeans (reaffirming the ability of the UN to work), and the Americans (helping reduce the deficit that we will have to pay off)... the only people it hurts are anti-UN radicals like Bush and Weltall here... and unfortunately they just will never admit the truth when it stares them in the face. So we get speeches about how the UN is useless, and a failed, old relic...
Now, I do admit that the UN has some serious issues. Its current makeup just isn't right for the world as it is. The Security Council is a Cold War relic that desperately needs to be rethought... Germany and Japan should get veto seats, for sure... after that I don't know. Its a sticky issue... should it grow (to better reperesent the world in the rotating seats)? Shrink (more focused power for the big nations)? Stay the same? I don't know... I don't know enough, and the UN has been moving extremely slowly on the issue (over a decade now). I think that they are finally beginning to address the fact that it must change to be able to adapt and survive, however... so there may be hope. We will see if it it fufilled...
We are in a bad situation in Iraq.
First... this cannot be compared to an actual war like the Civil War. Its got to be compared to other occupations... Vietnam? Interesting comparison in some ways, sure... but there there was a stroing organized resistance, an 'enemy' we could fight... here that isn't there.
Now, are the casualties so high that we should leave or something? No way! We may have been total idiots to go in the way we did, but once we're in we are in. We can't quit now... it would be a total disaster for both the Iraqi people and the world at large.
One comment first. I know I've said it before... but its the obvious truth.
This administration was blinded before the war by its hopes. There is no better way to describe it. They looked at the situation, but did not see what was actually happening... they looked, and were blind. They looked at a Islamic nation with a secular government that was harsh and cruel. They said, 'this is a threat'... and decided to take it out. Of course the ratings boost was a big part too, and the big contracts for friends... but just as much it was about delusions of the people in control of this country. There is no better term to describe their thoughts...
I mean, how could they have thought that the Iraqis would be overjoyed to see us and that that feeling would be the prevalent, long-term opinion? How could they? Now, I admit... Iraq is in many ways better off than it was. And Iraqis DO say that they think they are better off now and that it is good Sadaam fell (66%)... but ever-increasing numbers hate us almost as much. This really should NOT have been a surprise, given all the circumstances! All they had to do was look at the middle east, see how the opinion of the US is about as low as it could possibly go, and see that these people won't stay gratified for long! And especially not when you completely and totally bungle the post-war phase of the war...
See, if you go to war you must be ready for what happens when it is over. For many generations we have known this... for those reasons, we let the Japanese Emperor stay in power when they surrendered in World War II. We didn't force Germany to pay for WWII like we had WWI (with disasterous consequences). And in 1991, we formed a strong cooalition to push Sadaam out of Kuwait.
Now, the first President Bush did many things wrong... but compared to his son, he was actually a good president in some ways. See, he understood the value of international relationships. He did not want to foot the huge bill for the war to come, so he got nearly everyone in the world to help. Now, did we do almost all the fighting? Yes... but the world paid for it! That is KEY. The world paid.
This Bush? He assumed that they would be happy and quickly peaceful... that they would have half this many troops in Iraq by now... that Sadaam had chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons... that Sadaam had strong ties to Al Quaida... that Sadaam helped fund or plan 9/11. As we know now, all of those ideas were totally wrong. Totally and completely beyond any shadow of a doubt.
But he assumed those things, and said for 18 months how all of those things (exceping the 9/11 ties, which he never actually said but just let people imply) were the facts... I'm sure that he eventually convinced himself that they WERE true, though anyone looking at all the facts would know otherwise (as the CIA tried to tell them many times). So what did he do? He spurned the UN, insulted it so many ways so many times, made false accusations of its uselessness... And took almost the whole burden of the war on our shoulders. And now when it backfired and bit us... he asks the UN for money (like the speech last week). But by now he is far too proud to do what it would take to actually get significant contributions from the international community.
See, what sane nation would send its men to fight and probably die, or even its money to build a nation, when the people acceping the money won't let them do so much as have any influence on what that contribution will ultimately do? Why should France and Germany contribute troops and money when we won't let them have the tiniest bit of control over the nation they would risk so much to support? It makes no sense! But by now Bush is far too far on his 'I hate the UN' platform and will never back down... so we pay it all. All $75 or so billion that has already been spent, and all $87 billion that will be spent over the next year, and all of the many, many billions after that...
Yes, ridding the world of Sadaam did us all a favor. But at this cost, it was not worth it. Now, had Bush formed a true international cooalition like his father did, and had a compelling, proven reason to go to war like we usually do when invading a nation, I would probably not have opposed this war... I didn't oppose the first Gulf War, or Kosovo, or Bosnia... but it just met none of the criteria for a sane war, or even a sane peacekeeping operation! Bush has 1) put a massive bill on our shoulders; 2) alienated the rest of the world, making it near-impossible to get their help (that we so desperately need) unless we change our entire government policy on the region; 3) lied consistently to the world for 18 months or more about Iraq when if he had truly investigated the facts and looked at them face on and allowed himself to accept them (I'm sure that he knew the actual truth, but wouldn't admit it to anyone, possibly not even himself...) he would have known better; 4) put a massive occupation on our shoulders, requiring many tens of thousands of men for some uncertain period of time that certainly will be years; 5) abandoned Afghanistan (a much more just war) and allowed it to be completely taken over by the warlords, bringing the chances for that nation to truly change to near-zero, and refused to allow the one thing that would truly help there (international peacekeepers in the whole nation, not just the capitol); 6) given us a gift of the US's biggest budget deficit of all time (and maybe the biggest one percent-wise as well, maybe topping the ones under Reagan); etc, etc, etc...
...
Anyway... the situation in Iraq now. It's dangerous. Our people are dying. Is it as bad as Vietnam? No. But our troops are vulnerable... Iraq is now a magnet to all the anti-American suicide bombers and terrorists in the Middle East! I know we must stay... but its bad. We badly, BADLY need help from other nations to share the burden... and I think that if the Iraqis saw that we weren't just occupiers and were rebuilding their nation in a UN-led international cooalition they would feel better about the situation and the (strong and growing) popular support for the terrorists in the nation would drop. Middle Easterners don't hate Europeans nearly as much of us, and sharing the burden would be a big, big help... to the Iraqis, the Middle Easterners, the Europeans (reaffirming the ability of the UN to work), and the Americans (helping reduce the deficit that we will have to pay off)... the only people it hurts are anti-UN radicals like Bush and Weltall here... and unfortunately they just will never admit the truth when it stares them in the face. So we get speeches about how the UN is useless, and a failed, old relic...
Now, I do admit that the UN has some serious issues. Its current makeup just isn't right for the world as it is. The Security Council is a Cold War relic that desperately needs to be rethought... Germany and Japan should get veto seats, for sure... after that I don't know. Its a sticky issue... should it grow (to better reperesent the world in the rotating seats)? Shrink (more focused power for the big nations)? Stay the same? I don't know... I don't know enough, and the UN has been moving extremely slowly on the issue (over a decade now). I think that they are finally beginning to address the fact that it must change to be able to adapt and survive, however... so there may be hope. We will see if it it fufilled...
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