Comments on: Kinds of Quagmires

By: Crooked Timber » » Kinds of Quagmires II

Crooked Timber » » Kinds of Quagmires II — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 14:03:05 +0000

[...] As many have noted, as the situation in Iraq remains stuck, the political push from the pro-war side will increasingly move towards blaming the war’s failure on those who opposed its initiation, who had no power whatsoever over its direction, and even, in some cases, those who sacrificed a great deal to its prosecution. The astonishing vilification of Cindy Sheehan by right-wing talking heads is evidence enough of that. I find it depressing—and a sign of how stuck things now are—that a CT post from almost two years ago stands up pretty well. [...]

By: tom beta 2

tom beta 2 — Thu, 04 Sep 2003 18:43:44 +0000

By the way, that’s “8 to 9” million illegal immigrants, not 8 9 million. Also, Elliott, nice blog. And I really apologize for misspelling your name—four times! Arrg. And, I wasn’t going to, but: contract3d:

… to host American troops as they threaten Islam’s holy land …

You mean, as opposed to protecting it, and training and supplying its armed forces, like we have been for the last several decades? Personally, I think the US Army should apply to the House of Saud for the official appellation “Defender of Islam.”

By: tom beta 2

tom beta 2 — Thu, 04 Sep 2003 18:25:34 +0000

Hi, Elliot, First off, I think your concluding paragraph, that immigration is primarily about economics, is right. However, I also think personal freedom plays a part as well. If a Philipina is looking for a new home, given a choice between equivalent job offers in the UAE or the US, and there are no other personal factors involved (e.g., family members in one or the other), I think she will pick the US. Also, historically speaking, the US was a backwater, much of it dirt poor, for its first hundred years. People still immigrated here. I’m sure a lot of it was economic, but that wasn’t the whole story. Your immigration statistics are impressive, as long as they are expressed as percentages. However, in raw numbers, the US has 8-9 million estimated illegal immigrants; the total population of Saudi Arabia is only 21.5 million (as of 2001). The total population of the UAE in 2001 was 2.4 million. Kuwait had about 2 million. The current foreign-born population of the US is estimated at about 33 million—half again as much as the entire population of Saudi Arabia. (My US stats are from the Center for Immigration Studies. My stats for the UAE, Kuwait, and Saudi are from the 2001 CIA World Fact Book, found here. You’ll have to navigate to each country’s page on your own.) Elliot Oti:

… all Gulf states have huge numbers of illegal immigrants.

What are your sources for the huge numbers of illegal immigrants in the Gulf states? I can’t find much on that. Elliot Oti:

55% of Kuwait’s workforce is foreign. 80% of all UAE residents are foreign.

When you say that X% of residents are foreign, that doesn’t neccessarily mean immigrant. Many countries restrict citizenship to native bloodlines, regardless of place of birth. For example, in Japan there are people who were born and raised in Japan, whose parents were born and raised in Japan, who still cannot get citizenship because their immigrant grandparents were Korean. Technically, they are listed as foreigners with permanent residency, but I wouldn’t count them as immigrants. I suspect many Gulf states do the same. Back to the CIA World Factbook, the US had (2001) a net migration rate of 3.5/1000. The UAE stat is 1.61/1000, Saudi Arabia is 1.32/1000, and Kuwait is 14.31/1000 (Wow!).

By: Robert Schwartz

Robert Schwartz — Thu, 04 Sep 2003 05:31:48 +0000

“Its a quagmire man. The movement will grow just like the 60’s man. Far Out, only this time we’ll have a real revolution and herb will be legal man.” No irony intended. I was just mocking the quagmireistas. I think that they want to rerun the 60’s, complete with the brown acid. They see themselves marching on Washington, bringing they administration down, smoking a lot of ganja and getting laid a lot too. Those were the days. Makes me tear up. I think they are taking bad drugs and that they should straighten up and fly right.

By: Nabakov

Nabakov — Wed, 03 Sep 2003 15:07:27 +0000

“This is brain on Drugs! Just say no to Drugs.” Manners please. Say “No Thank You”. I dunno though, maybe there’s whole level of irony to that there comment I’m jus’ missing. Returning to the original post – how is it that the most educated, well-skilled, westernised and non-secular middle eastern country, sitting on top of the second largest deposits of the world’s most sort after natural resource and now controlled by the most powerful army in history (with a long tradition of getting practical shit done on the spot) is now being called a piece of flypaper. It’s a strong arguement for Daniel Davies’s (CT personality cult alert) point – right country, right mission, wrong administration.

By: contract3d

contract3d — Wed, 03 Sep 2003 12:00:22 +0000

"Our exit strategy is to have a stable, democratic Iraq to exit from." Yeah, we'll exit as soon as a government willing to recognize Israel, to host American troops as they threaten Islam's holy land and to endorse secularism over Sharia, is put in office by the will of the people. I sure am glad there's a plan.

By: Robert Schwartz

Robert Schwartz — Wed, 03 Sep 2003 04:50:11 +0000

Bearded Character with face metal and lots of tatoos: “Its a quagmire man. The movement will grow just like the 60’s man. Far Out, only htis time we’ll have a real revolution and herb will be legal man.” Announcer: This is brain on Drugs! Just say no to Drugs.

By: Rodan

Rodan — Tue, 02 Sep 2003 21:48:47 +0000

The question I am not seeing in any blogs is an answer to ‘How’? How to get out of the mess in Iraq on good terms. It is easy. Find a ‘FDR’ or ‘Lincoln’ and put him out there for the folks to look at and then vote for. But… Saddam and his mafia shot all those types. For a gov’t ‘of the people, by the people’, the judges and courts are in place and starting to operate. Elections of the legislature shouldn’t be hard to do. But the lead man, that is looking impossible. I suggest the US immediatly put up $2 billion to quickly build up electrical power generstion and put a native group of Iriqis in charge of the Interior ministry to get the job done quickly. A/C and friges working full time calm people very well. The ministers would then be heroes and perceived as people showing an ability to lead. Then hold national elections. Our spin doctors could handle the publicity to help these people to emerge. With a dozen Ministries to work with, a political base could quickly evolve. There is more, but later, ok?

By: Elliott Oti

Elliott Oti — Tue, 02 Sep 2003 16:00:52 +0000

tom beta 2 wrote “The immigrants to these countries move there because they are recruited and paid to immigrate to fill certain types of jobs.” On the contrary: the immigrants to these countries move there not because they are recruited, but because they want to: all Gulf states have huge numbers of illegal immigrants. Immigrants (as opposed to refugees) emigrate chiefly for economic reasons, not political, and almost never out of ideological reasons. “On the other hand, people will PAY outrageous sums and risk their lives to be smuggled into the US on the hope things will work out well. I suspect this is not true of these hardline Islamic countries. “ Then you suspect wrongly. Despite the fact that, for instance, domestic servants are often raped by their masters, and despite the fact that victims have no legal recourse and even wind up being the ones punished for adultery, there are vast numbers of Philipino women lined up anxious to get into Gulf States to work there as domestic servants. The reason is money, pure and simple: economics as the key to a better life. This is the reason the US is so attractive to immigrants, legal or illegal. It is the reason Africans pay huge amounts to be smuggled in rubber boats across the Mediterranean to Spain. It is the reason Chinese immigrants suffocate or die of hypothermia in the cargo areas of refrigerated freight trucks crossing the Channel to England. This is why people are scrambling over each other to live in some of the harshest theocracies on Earth. If the US were dirt poor, tom, then no matter how free or democratic it may be, it would not have an immigration problem at all. People, especially young people, would be emigrating – to places like Saudi Arabia.

By: tom beta 2

tom beta 2 — Tue, 02 Sep 2003 14:11:19 +0000

From matt davis:

tom beta2: Success rates in building democracies should be based on the percentage of times we succeeded when trying to build them, not the percentage of times we ended up with one when trying to do something else. We should note, however, that a democracy that chooses not to sell us oil on an advantageous basis—or chooses not to become friendly with Israel—will be a complete non-starter with the instigators of this invasion; so one can only employ the term ‘democracy’ here loosely.

One, this isn’t relevant to my argument because the point was post-WWII historical record, not the record of this administration. Two, can you give examples (just for interest’s sake)? From Kieren Healy:

Tom Beta 2 – You seem to want to talk yourself into the ‘it’s a quagmire’ line. No, I don’t. I was thinking out loud about whether it was at all plausible.

Fair enough.

Tom Beta 2 – Our exit strategy is to have a stable, democratic Iraq to exit from. One question my post raises is whether this is a real target, or whether it will forever be a shining goal, just out of reach over the horizon, and thus a permanent reason to stay in Iraq just a bit longer.

Do you mean to question whether it’s an achievable goal, or do you mean that the administration might intentionally keep this as an unreachable goal in order to keep us in Iraq? If it is intentional, then it will change when the administration does and our “quagmire” will abruptly end. In which case, the current administration would be dispicable bastards and should all be hung (okay, just some of them). If it’s an unachievable goal, and we are really intent on achieving it, then that would just suck; we’d be very honorable, noble, losers. And everyone would still hate us. Back to Kieren Healy:

(from me:) The “Domino Theory of Democratization” is what lead to the US having a huge population of immigrants. No, it’s not. The Domino theory is about neighboring nations following in the path of leading nations who adopt a new political system — originally communism, and now apparently democracy. It’s not a theory about individuals’ preferences about moving to democratic countries.

You are right; I had a brain blowout and jumped about three steps ahead of my argument. However, the Communist dominoes didn’t fall because their revolution never caught on in neighboring countries. People saw what happened after Communists took over and decided they didn’t want that (basically, persecution and poverty). A lot of people DO seem to want what democracy provides, and maybe they might agitate to get some of it if they saw a neighboring state both enjoying and prospering from it. From elliot oti:

There are no Western countries, none whatsoever, who have to deal with immigration on a per-capita scale anywhere approaching the scale in hardline Islamic Gulf states.

The immigrants to these countries move there because they are recruited and paid to immigrate to fill certain types of jobs. You can’t immigrate to Saudi Arabia without having a job waiting there for you, and I suspect that is true of the UAE and Kuwait as well. On the other hand, people will PAY outrageous sums and risk their lives to be smuggled into the US on the hope things will work out well. I suspect this is not true of these hardline Islamic countries. I believe this is a significant difference.

By: Elliott Oti

Elliott Oti — Tue, 02 Sep 2003 08:30:25 +0000

Correction: “6 billion” -> 6 million

By: Elliott Oti

Elliott Oti — Tue, 02 Sep 2003 08:28:08 +0000

Tom beta 2 wrote: “People don’t flock to [...] Islamic [countries]; they do flock to democracies.” Completely untrue. People flock to Islamic countries in truly staggering amounts. The population of some Gulf theocracies has quintupled in the past 40 years, with immigrants often greatly outnumbering natives. 55% of Kuwait’s workforce is foreign. 80% of all UAE residents are foreign. There are 6 billion foreigners in Saudia Arabia alone. There are no Western countries, none whatsoever, who have to deal with immigration on a per-capita scale anywhere approaching the scale in hardline Islamic Gulf states.

By: GB

GB — Tue, 02 Sep 2003 00:55:52 +0000

bleh: I have a feeling what they want is something more like Saudi Arabia or the Shah’s Iran 1) With friends as Saudi Arabia USA does not needs enemies in the War of Terror™. 2) Shah’s Iran – everybody knows what it led to. Bleh, your arguments just support the idea that Iraq is 1) a quagmire, or 2) lost cause. Think something better.

By: Kieran Healy

Kieran Healy — Tue, 02 Sep 2003 00:13:40 +0000

James – But then there is also an irony in the widespread failure of Bush’s left-leaning critics to acknowledge the “root cause” vision implicit in the said strategy. Yeah, there’s a convergence here that people haven’t been noticing. You might say that the neocons are beginning to implement the policies that follow from a left-wing “root cause” analysis, only by military means.

By: Kieran Healy

Kieran Healy — Tue, 02 Sep 2003 00:11:21 +0000

Tom Beta 2 – You seem to want to talk yourself into the ‘it’s a quagmire’ line. No, I don’t. I was thinking out loud about whether it was at all plausible. Our exit strategy is to have a stable, democratic Iraq to exit from. One question my post raises is whether this is a real target, or whether it will forever be a shining goal, just out of reach over the horizon, and thus a permanent reason to stay in Iraq just a bit longer. The “Domino Theory of Democratization” is what lead to the US having a huge population of immigrants. No, it’s not. The Domino theory is about neighboring nations following in the path of leading nations who adopt a new political system—originally communism, and now apparently democracy. It’s not a theory about individuals’ preferences about moving to democratic countries.