In the end, policy mistakes -- particularly big ones -- tend to produce a kind of circular reasoning -- in which those in charge try to justify the policy by citing the need to avoid, at all costs, the failure of the policy. So it was in Vietnam. So, too, with our latest misadventure in Iraq.
A prime example of this loopy logic comes from the father of the war himself, Defense Undersecretary Paul Wolfowitz, who recently returned from his listening tour of Iraq, trailing a flock of gullible newspaper columnists behind him.
This is what the conquering hero told Tim Russert:
I think winning the peace in Iraq is now the crucial battle in the war on terrorism.
And why is Iraq the crucial battle in the war on terror? Is it because of Saddam's vast arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, his "reconstituted" nuclear program, and his fleet of remote control airplanes capable of delivering death and destruction to American cities?
No, as Wolfowitz admitted in an earlier interview, those elusive weapons are now only a "historical issue."
Is it because of Saddam's close ties to Al Qaeda, and his involvement in both the 1993 and 2001 World Trade Center attacks?
No, because those ties and that involvement did not exist, despite Wolfowitz's best efforts to legitimize every wacko conspiracy theory ever pushed out the door of the American Enterprise Insitute.
If Iraq is now the central battle in the war on terrorism, it's because America is there -- or rather, because Wolfowitz and his crew put it there, in pursuit of their dream of a domesticated Arab world, reconciled to Western hegemony and living in peace and harmony with Israel and its soon-to-be-born Palestinian bantustan.
And so the circle is closed: Because America in Iraq, it must fight the "terrorists." And because it must fight the terrorists, America has to be in Iraq.
This kind of circular logic permeates the entire enterprise. Why has the high command proclaimed that current U.S. troop strength in Iraq -- about 140,000 men, give or take -- is the "optimal" force? Could it be because that also happens to be the maximum force that can be scraped together by the hard-pressed Army?
The problems raised by such thought processes go way beyond the GIs who must die to keep Wolfowitz's logical loop from coming untied. Calling the war in Iraq the central battle in the war against terrorism ignores the distinct possibility that it is in fact a monumental diversion from the real struggle against terrorism -- a strategic distraction that will make huge demands on the American military and the American intelligence community for years, if not decades.
Even worse, the Wolfowitz tautology discounts the risk that a fractured and increasingly hostile Iraq -- governed by a weak American puppet government backed by too few American troops -- will become not just a battleground, but also a haven and recruitment center for Islamic terrorists of all stripes and colors:
The U.S. commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, warned it was becoming a "terrorist magnet" for foreigners and said attacks were getting more sophisticated.
The administration and its supporters, no doubt, will be tempted to respond with a variation on Bush's comment. But an active Al Qaeda presence in Iraq would give the group a foothold in the heart of the Sunni world, instead of on its Afghan fringes. It would also put bin Ladin that much closer to his primary target -- Saudi Arabia, where the battle is already intensifying.
There is a lesson to be learned here, which is that even superpowers have to be careful where and when they choose to give battle. In pursuing their grand strategy for remaking first Iraq and then the rest of the Arab world, the neocons were not only blind to the consequences of failure, they also refused to acknowledge what the economists call "opportunity costs" -- all those things that America won't be able to do because the resources to do them are tied down in Iraq.
The answer, the hawks will (and have) said, is to "win" the war, which they now define as suppressing the current Ba'athist-led resistance in the Sunni belt. And despite, the accelerating death toll, the generals are sparing no effort to convince the media that the war is being won -- or at least, is on the verge of starting to be won:
Senior U.S. commanders here are so confident about their recent successes that they have begun debating whether victory is in sight. "I think we're at the hump" now, a senior Central Command official said. "I think we could be over the hump fairly quickly" -- possibly within a couple of months, he added.Hogg, whose troops are still engaged in combat every day, agreed. "I think we're fixing to turn the corner," he said Thursday. "I think the operations over the next couple of weeks will get us there."
At least they stayed away from metaphors involving lights and tunnels.
But even if the Ba'athist underground is finally suppressed, it just raises the question that's been hanging over the entire operation from the very start: In destroying the Ba'ath, might the neocons simply be tilling the dry Iraqi ground for Al Qaeda, or its surrogates, to plant their seeds?
Nor is bin Ladin the only one who might like to raise a crop of dead GIs. Will the Shi'a community remain passive as the neocons pursue their grand design for an Americanized Iraq? Or will the hardliners gain strength from U.S. arrogance and duplicity, until their followers finally graduate from angry demonstrations to armed attacks?
Nobody really knows. But the warning signs are clear enough:
In Karbala, hundreds of angry demonstrators gathered at the Imam al-Hussein Shrine, Iraq’s second-holiest site for Shiite Muslims, protesting the alleged shooting by U.S. forces Saturday night of a 51-year-old restaurant worker.U.S. soldiers, accompanied by local Iraqi police, tried to enter the shrine but were blocked by Haider Hanoon, the alleged victim, and workers inside, witnesses said. Troops and police allegedly withdrew after the shooting, in which nine people were wounded.
The important thing to understand is that, however the military struggle turns out, the political and social battle for Iraq is going to be a long, torturous and bitter conflict -- one with no clear definition of victory, but many interlocking opportunities for defeat.
The neocons, no doubt, will continue to paint this lunatic venture as the Gettysburg of the war on terrorism. And I'm sure they'll be as strident and demagogic as ever in warning America of the disastrous consequences of failure.
That last part may even be true -- although the consequences of pursuing a failed policy to the bitter end probably will be worse than the costs of admitting failure and abandoning the insane dream of remaking Iraq into America's bastion in the Middle East.
In the end, America will have to leave Iraq, leaving behind an unstable land filled with uncertainty and violence -- in other words, Iraq as it has always been, and as it may continue to be for many decades. But by putting the occupation under U.N. control and the U.N. flag now, the administration could at least make the transition less painful, saving many lives and much treasure at the expense of a considerable loss of face.
That, however, would require a more fundamental revaluation of U.S. strategy in the Middle East, and in the war on terrorism. It would also mean admitting a mistake. So it won't be done. But with all their brave talk about crucial battles, the neocons can only try to obscure the fact that the war in Iraq is entirely a self-inflicted wound -- and that they're the ones who inflicted it.
It's rather telling that the same man floating this lead zeppelin of a rationale is the same one claiming that Bush's aircraft carrier stunt was justified because the Navy's mission was accomplished.
I'm about OD'ed on the Vietnam analogies, but it's rather scary that it at least the country had a functional leadership when we finally decided to turn tail.
The only public 'mea culpa' out of Vietnam to my limited knowlege was Robert McNamara's apology.
The American dead were already buried, but it was nice to hear.
Lyndon Johnson was captured on tape as saying he did not think America could win, but he sent more troops anyway because he could not appear soft on the Commies and get re-elected.
So Georgie and his Lying Cretins are now stuck between a very similar rock and a hard place much like the one that ended LBJ's political career.
How many dead do we have to suffer before somebody wakes up, smells the aroma of death hanging over Washington, stops listening to wormtongue advice, and starts the program for bringing America's kids home.
1) Governing Council stands for referendum. Writes constitution. The US constitution did not take that long, they don't need years either. They can use parts of ours and others if needed.
2) Local Elections within 30 days. We congratulate the winners.
3) National Elections within 30 days. We congratulate the winners.
4) Our kids get to start packing for home.
5) We take a billion of the $3.9 billion wasted monthly in Iraq and hand it over to the elected Iraqi government to help them clean up until their infrastructure is running again. And we spend the remaining $2.9 billion a month on weaning the US from foreign oil.
Pluses
The idea is to actually liberate Iraq and let them become a democracy instead of trying to subjugate them into a colony.
The elected Iraqi government might be very interested in voluntarily selling their oil to us.
If the Iraqis get a chance to cast ballots instead of bullets many will take that chance.
We would actually have an exit strategy and timetable.
I'd have to take back every nasty thing I ever said about Georgie and his war because I don't believe he has the balls and/or brains to do it. However, I would be so happy to be wrong for once about Georgie and his Lying Cretins that I could do it with a smile.
.
The maddest, saddest thing about the neocons is that they belive tht 'terrorism' is an ontological category, not a tactic. So they reckon there is a fxed number of terrorists, and, once they are all dead, there won't be any more. But it doesn't work like that. For every civilian you kill,. you make another two terrorists. And the more you kill, the more there will be. The British know this. the French learned it in Algeria. Even the Israelis know it now. But Bush and his voters are going to have to learn it all over again, very slowly, very painfully; and the whole damn world will pay the price this time.
I think Wolfowitz is expressing the real reason (or one of them) for the invasion. The idea is loony, but the way to fight terrorism, it was argued, is to establish a presence in the Middle East that can eliminate the states where terrorism is being supported. Nobody thought this idea would be supported by the American people, so other reasons were invented. Here's an article from the Wall Steet Journal along these lines.
We Won't Back Down
The real reason we're in Iraq--and why we will stay.
BY STEVEN DEN BESTE
Thursday, July 24, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110003786
... In fact, the real reason we went into Iraq was precisely to "nation build": to create a secularized, liberated, cosmopolitan society in a core Arab nation. To create a place where Arabs were free and safe and unafraid and happy and successful and not ruled by corrupt monarchs or brutal dictators. This would demonstrate to the other people in the Arab and Muslim worlds that they can succeed, but only if they abandon those political, cultural and religious chains that are holding them back.
We are not doing this out of altruism. We are not trying to give them a liberalized Western democracy because we're evangelistic liberal democrats (with both liberal and democrat taking historical meanings). We are bringing reform to Iraq out of narrow self-interest. We have to foster reform in the Arab/Muslim world because it's the only real way in the long run to make them stop trying to kill us.
My God, they're publishing that idiot in the Wall Street Journal now? That's setting the bar down pretty low, even for the loony right.
Iraw as part of the War on Terrorism. Hah. That's rich. Oh, and speaking of Bin Laden, the New Yorker has a nice article.
I just sent off two care packages to brothers of friends. One is in Mosul and the other was last heard from around Tirkrit. I hate this policy, if you can even call it that. Every day that Bush delays apologizing to the world (read: the UN) the more of our soldiers will die needless deaths. This is pure insanity...
Off topic, but an interesting bit from the New Yorker article:
"In 1998, Al Qaeda struck the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing more than two hundred people. In retaliation, Clinton signed a secret Presidential finding authorizing the C.I.A. to kill bin Laden. It was the first directive of this kind that Clarke had seen during his thirty years in government. Soon afterward, he told me, C.I.A. officials went to the White House and said they had “specific, predictive, actionable” intelligence that bin Laden would soon be attending a particular meeting, in a particular place. “It was a rare occurrence,” Clarke said. Clinton authorized a lethal attack. The target date, however—August 20, 1998—nearly coincided with Clinton’s deposition about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Clarke said that he and other top national-security officials at the White House went to see Clinton to warn him that he would likely be accused of “wagging the dog” in order to distract the public from his political embarrassment. Clinton was enraged. “Don’t you fucking tell me about my political problems, or my personal problems,” Clinton said, according to Clarke. “You tell me about national security. Is it the right thing to do?” Clarke thought it was. “Then fucking do it,” Clinton told him.
Don’t you fucking tell me about my political problems, or my personal problems,” Clinton said, according to Clarke. “You tell me about national security. Is it the right thing to do?” Clarke thought it was. “Then fucking do it,” Clinton told him.
Yeah, but was he wearing a flight suit?
Off topic, but an interesting bit from the New Yorker article
yeah, i liked that bit.
Clinton sounded pretty un-serious there, didn't he?
Well, we're only 2/500th's of the way to the total on the Vietnam Memorial Wall....
The longest journey begins with one step....
--ventura county, ca
Another interesting statistic: Americans currently make up just over 0.5% of the total population of Iraq. Maybe there should be an American on the Governing Council to represent this oppressed minority.
The I Ching a book of Chinese wisdom (Wilhelm/Baynes translation) from 5000 years ago has this to say about war: "But war is always a dangerous thing and brings with it destruction and devastation. Therefore it should not be resorted to rashly but, like a poisonous drug, should be used as a last recourse.
The justifying cause of a war, and clear and intelligible aims, ought to be explained to the people by an experienced leader. Unless there is a quite definite wr aim to which the people can consciously pledge themselves, the unity and strength of conviction that lead to victory will not be forthcoming. But the leader must also look to it that the passion of war and the delirium of victory do not give rise to unjust acts that will not meet with general approval. If justice and perseverance are the basis of action, all goes well."
Oops, even guys who died 5000 years ago had a clearer idea about waging war than our present lack of leadership. The bit about "an experienced leader" has been especially missing, let alone "clear and intelligible war aims." What were we aiming for anyway, what are we aiming for now, can anyone tell me?
It seems so clear that the opposite of clarity is being passed on to the "people," with the only possible outcome being some form of failure, in this case perhaps horrible and wide ranging failure. Of course 5000 years ago Chinese guys weren't Christian so maybe the rules changed and there obvious wisdom has become obsolete!?
If you read history, the Iraq debacle reminds me of the French invading Italy to straighten things out. They got stuck there for two hundred years.
May be that's why the French kept away from Iraq.
A little bit of history before and since GW stole the presidency:
1.1997: PNAC formulates American Hegemony for the
next century.Powerful cabal of rightwingers like Bush, Cheney,Rumsfeld, Rice and Powell,plus
jewish intellectuals and Israeli propagandists
such as Wolfie,Perle,Kristol,Adelman and evangelistic christians like Robertson, Falwell
climb aboard.
2.2000: Bush steals the presidency.
3. 2001: WTC bombing, "the sigle cataclysmic event" needed to instill fear in the American public to adopt the PNAC agenda occurs.Since the PNAC document foresaw this event, is it possible for anyone to say this is coincidence anymore?
4.2003: Iraq is invaded on pretexts similar to Gulf of Tonkin.
Now Wolfie is saying that these pretexts are not important.We should move on to bring the fruits of democracy to the Iraqi people.He can say that with a straight face because, as a disciple of the late Leo Strauss he believes that only an elite can set the nation's agenda and they have the right, nay, the obligation to lie to the rest of us serfs so we will learn to obey our masters.
May be somebody can tell Wolfie that as Americans we have inherited a system of government based on Jeffersonian principles where we expect a modicum of honesty from our rulers.If Mr.Leo Strauss is our new founding father, may be Wolgfie can tell us when we had the opportunity to discuss this man's agenda so we can decide if it is the right thing for us.
Why is it that we have to put up with cockamamie
ideas and pay a heavy price in the blood of our soldiers and Iraqi civilians so Wolfie and his friends in the neocon group can indulge in their fantasies of world hegemony?
The nation is being run by a pack of out-and-out loons, who are psychologically incapable of admitting when they are wrong. We're being run by a bona fide cult.
And nobody in Washington dares admit it, because it's just too frightening and bizarre.
It's real simple: the killing will continue until we leave.
Would you let someone run your country without objecting?
Scraping Flypaper Over An Open Sore
Al Qaeda, and other terrorist organizations, are not stupid. They have outsmarted us on a number of occasions. It is safe to assume, from our reaction after the 9/11 tragedy, that we are not racking up more victories over them. Thus, we go public with our efforts to defeat them, pushing aside the wise adage not to give legitimacy to terrorist groups. Yes, you can't ignore the 9/11 tragedy, but you don't have to declare war on terror either.
That aside, let's stay on focus. Flypaper. The idea is that we will lure all of the terrorists into Iraq, where we will be able to engage them with full firepower. If they were stupid. Unfortunately, they're not. Yes, we have stirred up a hornet's nest over there, and certainly there are more terrorists today than there were pre-9/11, but as far as we know terrorists are not our scourge in Iraq, it is Iraqi resisters of various varieties. There may be some terrorists over there, but nothing substantial.
Rather, as overextended as we are militarily, and with North Korea rattling up tensions, the terrorists, including AQ, are probably extending their operations, the idea being that they can cause us trouble all over the globe, and make us do something about it. They can start cutting deals with other resistance forces, and taking matters into their own hands, in their strategy to disrupt key economic flows, like oil pipelines. Thus, wherever there are oil pipelines, or other such key economic infrastructure, we will be forced to defend it, to provide security, which raises uncertainty and costs a lot of money.
There is no reason to believe the flypaper bit at all. Why would the terrorists flock en masse into Iraq? Exclusively? It may be one site among many, and certainly an attractive target for economic disruption, but only one among many. As always, their strategy likely continues to be global in scope, with quick hit-and-run missions with small cadres of operatives. Such a strategy is not flypaper but liquid, as is readily acknowledged by the real planners and strategists of the West. Only sending in Special Forces after the fact won't help. Only intelligence, and global cooperation, will.
Iraq should not be the center of the war against terrorism. It never should have been. It was a secular, Arab nationalist state, and not even remotely linked to the Taliban or Al Qaeda. Having the same enemies does not ipso facto mean cooperation, especially when the two so-called allies consider each other enemies, though perhaps enemies of a different magnitude.
The only reason Iraq is the center of the war on terrorism is because we desperately want it to be so. We've spent all of this money, and essentially for nothing as far as fighting Al Qaeda and other terrorists goes. It was the Project For A New American Century all along, and eventually this will be acknowledged by the administration's defenders, such as the Wall Street Journal, which is almost to that point already of disavowing the publicized reasons in favor of the actual reasons, and explaining it away by postulating a need for misdirection in order to win support for the war.
When this happens, the American people should stand up, and make the administration, and their defenders, walk on flypaper. Barefoot. Heated to 120 degrees. Why? They deceived everyone, spent billions of dollars rushing into a war that didn't have to happen yet, if at all, and have lined the pockets of the corporations they previously worked for (whether it's about that or not doesn't matter, the facts speak for themselves). It's time for a full accounting, so that this nation can get back on track, regain faith in global relations and the economy, and reinvigorate the war on terrorism.
I think the Bushies are incapable of admitting that they invaded Iraq for the wrong reasons. The problem for all of us (the US, the Iraqis and the world) is that we probably can't get to any sensible solution until the Bush gang is gone. And the next election seems to be impossibly far away.....