Don’t They Know There’s a War On?

by Belle Waring on September 17, 2004

I think the Instapundit must still read Andrew Sullivan’s site. Does he just skip the parts about how our venture in Iraq is a total disaster? (Honesty compels me to mention that I was a supporter of this invasion, and so am either a) uniquely qualified to pronounce on its disastrousness or b) a certified idiot who should be mumbling apologies at all my anti-this-war-now brethren rather than parading my original bad judgment as a badge of honor. You decide.) I mean, the US military can’t guarantee security in the Green Zone?

At a briefing earlier this month, a high-ranking US officer in charge of the zone’s perimeter said he had insufficient soldiers to prevent intruders penetrating the compound’s defences.

The US major said it was possible weapons or explosives had already been stashed in the zone, and warned people to move in pairs for their own safety. The Green Zone, in Baghdad’s centre, is one of the most fortified US installations in Iraq. Until now, militants have not been able to penetrate it.

I’m very sorry to say this, but we are f%$#ed. I don’t mean particularly to pick on the Instapundit, but he is both a big name and representative. Where is the pro-war blogosphere on this? Is it really all about the pseudo-kerning? Can Hugh Hewitt honestly not think of anything, anything at all the US Congress might better do with its time than hold hearings on “Rathergate”? This is becoming surreal. John comes home from work, not having had time to read the news yet, and asks me over dinner, “what happened in the world today?” Admittedly, I do say, “those memos were fake.” But mostly I say things like, “lots and lots of people got killed in Iraq today and things are looking very very bad.” From Christopher Allbritton:

I don’t know if I can really put into words just how bad it is here some days. Yesterday was horrible — just horrible. While most reports show Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra as “no-go” areas, practically the entire Western part of the country is controlled by insurgents, with pockets of U.S. power formed by the garrisons outside the towns. Insurgents move freely throughout the country and the violence continues to grow.

I wish I could point to a solution, but I don’t see one. People continue to email me, telling me to report the “truth” of all the good things that are going on in Iraq. I’m not seeing a one. A buddy of mine is stationed here and they’re fixing up a park on a major street. Gen. Chiarelli was very proud of this accomplishment, and he stressed this to me when I interviewed him for the TIME story. But Baghdadis couldn’t care less. They don’t want city beautification projects; they want electricity, clean water and, most of all, an end to the violence….
In the context of all this, reporting on a half-assed refurbished school or two seems a bit childish and naive, the equivalent of telling a happy story to comfort a scared child. Anyone who asks me to tell the “real” story of Iraq — implying all the bad things are just media hype — should refer to this post. I just told you the real story: What was once a hell wrought by Saddam is now one of America’s making.

Could we please have a national debate about this war?

UPDATE: In Hewitt’s defense, I wrote this last night. Now there is one sentence on his blog about Iraq. Of course, it points to this post explaining how all the casualties the US suffered this month were the right sort of casualties, the kind that indicate how little the situation in Iraq is descending into chaos.

SECOND UPDATE: Henry rightly pointed me to these posts by Orin Kerr, Volokh conspirator, who is bucking this trend.

THIRD UPDATE: if, like some commenters, you want to hear at length about how I was totally wrong on Iraq, and what I should have thought instead, then you can read about it here.

{ 38 comments }

1

jdw 09.17.04 at 1:39 am

It’s much easier to make sense of the world if you just accept the fact that Instapundit, the National Review, Fox News and so forth really, honestly believe that Dan Rather is part of a vast left-wing conspiracy which includes anyone who keeps claiming Iraq is both an issue and a debacle, and that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth represent truth and justice, while Moveon.org is where Hitler would be working if he were alive today.

Lefty bloggers seem to have trouble with the idea, and posts like this are common. “They don’t really _believe_ this shit, do they?” Yes, they do.

I don’t know exactly where you find the common ground that allows you to move forward — it’s very possible that there is none. Certainly, though, you can’t engage in a productive discussion with a person who believes Dan Rather is in league with Clinton and the Commies by saying “No he’s not! Iraq’s a mess!” Instead, your premise should be “Rather should be fired. Things are going swimmingly in Iraq.” Maybe from there you can go to “Now that Bush has made the world safe for democracy, we can again focus on domestic issues. Kerry has an interesting plan for the future…” I don’t know. But trying to talk Glen Reynolds into being sane is like trying to convince the pope that there’s no God. Even if on some level he understood what you were talking about (and he probably wouldn’t), he has too much invested in and owes too much to the idea.

2

Jim 09.17.04 at 2:06 am

Just one thing: cut the self-pity crap about being attacked for being wrong on the war. Most people are happy you have finally seen reality. I don’t know what your arguments were for the war, but I am only cranky at the people who based their support on their “mature” understanding of “reality”, and not liking the foolish, patsy antiwar pussy arguments against it. Thank God Saddam posed absolutely no threat to anyone: just imagine the disaster if he had a decent army with WMDs.

3

Hal 09.17.04 at 2:14 am

Well, it seems Belle has passed through the “hell where we don’t know we’re in hell yet” and is now firmly in the twilight zone world of another dimension – the kind where you wake up and everyone is from bizarre world or something. Or you have special glasses that reveal the hidden horror of those around you.

JDW: actually, I don’t believe it’s the case that Insty is of the religious nature. I don’t even think he’s particularly faux patriotic. He’s a lawyer who’s trained to employ the confirmation bias and is exceptionally good at the “manipulation of the mob” thing. Well, at least the “mob” of blog junkies on the right.

He’s just sold his soul to “the man” and simply doesn’t care. It’s a skill he loves and is apparently happy with his roll of the dice.

Really, at this point, blogging has got to be part of his autonomous nervous system. It could be that he actually “died” during the war (in a Bluetooth keyboard tragedy that took a lot of the “101” out) and the Aliens colonizing this planet just keep that part of him going through whatever arcane mechanisms they have (kind of like Dick Cheney’s heart).

4

bob mcmanus 09.17.04 at 2:39 am

Hell people we got lots and lots of air power we ain’t using cause Bushco doesn’t want bad….umm worse headlines in election season.
Bushco does have a plan. They no intention of losing that oil, down to the last living Iraqi child.

Check out Tacitus, who has connections in DC. The word is out, Fallujah Delenda Est November 3, Sadr destroyed, Iran bombed. Allawi and Negroponte unleash the Death Squads.

Should Bush get re-elected your fear will be replaced by a shame beyond the ability to bear.

5

BigMacAttack 09.17.04 at 2:40 am

The wailing and teeth gnashing is on par with the crowing when the tanks rolled through Baghdad and Saddam’s statue was toppled.

I have no idea what is going to happen but I do know this thing has a long way to go and could go any which way.

Elections will be big. An elected government requesting that US troops leave or lead an all out assault on Fallujah could make all the difference in the world towards peace or civil war.

But I do know this thing has a long way to go and could go anyway imaginable and probably a few ways we cannot imagine.

6

a 09.17.04 at 2:44 am

It’s amusing how you want to talk about issues again, now the Bush AWOL thing has blown up in your face.

7

WeSaferThemHealthier 09.17.04 at 2:49 am

“I was a supporter of this invasion, and so am either a) uniquely qualified to pronounce on its disastrousness or b) a certified idiot who should be mumbling apologies at all my anti-this-war-now brethren rather than parading my original bad judgment as a badge of honor. You decide”

B.

What I would like to hear from formerly pro-war people is how they were wrong. What paradigm, information analysis structure, did they use that lead them to the conclusion that the invasion should go ahead?

Don’t do an Anne Applebaum “It’s not my fault, it’s the big bad Bush admin that mislead me”. I want to know what *YOU* guys did wrong, not how you were victimised because someone took advantage of your virtuous, courageous goodness.

You can’t correct a mistake until you acknowledge it. A bad output is the result of a bad throughput. What’s wrong with your throughput?

So please, dear Saddam-hating, freedom-loving Churchills( as opposed to us, Saddam-loving, freedom-hating Chamberlains ), do your mea culpa and do it thoroughly. Actually going to Iraq would be nice, send a postcard.

8

Anderson 09.17.04 at 3:03 am

I am coming to the depressing notion that the Instapundits of the world simply do not or cannot care about the real interests of the U.S. They are so caught in a partisan worldview that they can only think “Republicans up, Democrats down.” Usually, when you’re affluent and white and all that, this blind partisanship doesn’t end up hurting you in any perceptible way, so there’s no reason to drop it.

After 9/11, and with Saudi millions available to buy up all the plutonium on the black market, this partisanship is becoming awfully close to suicidal. And yet, there’s no indication that ANYTHING plausibly imaginable would make (say) Glenn Reynolds abjure Bush and support Kerry. NYC could be vaporized tomorrow, and it would somehow be the Democrats’ fault, on Instapundit and Little Green Footballs.

I don’t particularly like John Kerry; I am scornful of the Democratic Party; but I have a Kerry sticker on my car (in Mississippi, no less … curse you, Electoral College!), and I’m going to vote Kerry in November, purely on moral grounds.

(Sorry for the vent. That is all. Thanks, Belle1)

9

David W. 09.17.04 at 3:35 am

What if they gave a war and nobody cared?

The Media Drops the Ball: Iraq Situation Worse than Reported
WQOW-TV, Eau Claire, Wisconsin
September 13th, 2004

An Eau Claire man working in Iraq says the presidential candidates are not taking the war in Iraq seriously and the media is letting that slide. Former Eau Claire City Council President Wallace Rogers says that’s the impression he got while home on leave. Rogers is back in the Middle East. He says what is going on there is very different from the picture painted by the American media. He says, while he was in Eau Claire, he heard that the U.S. is winning the war and that we are making progress in establishing a democracy. Rogers says that is not what he sees. He says: “I am surprised and disturbed by what’s been happening in Iraq that I didn’t see or read about during the fifteen days I was just home. Iraq – Baghdad in particular this time – has spiraled into a state of anarchy: important Iraqi government officials are assassinated every other day; American soldiers and marines have been killed at a rate of more than three a day since I’ve left.”

10

baa 09.17.04 at 3:41 am

I’ll admit some puzzlement as to what your post is trying to accomplish, Belle. Doesn’t CBS running with a forgery, misrepresenting the account of their own document examiners, and then stonewalling count as a big story? As to why people are blogging about it, it’s a great “bloggable” story: a great deal can be found out about it from behind a desk. Also, many see it as confirming previously held beliefs about the shoddiness and bias of the mainstream press, so that helps too.

Iraq, by contrast, is not easily bloggable. We can’t know as much. You are 100% convinced that Iraq is a horrendous (irreperable?) disaster. Chris Allbrittron thinks so, and he knows more than us. But other folks don’t think so, and they also know more than us. At the level of debate available to uninformed web commentators, there seem to be three options on the table: 1) leveling pockets of insurgency while waiting to see if the new Iraqi government can get decent security up and running, 2) keeping the lid on while waiting to see if the new Iraqi government can get decent security up and running, or 3) getting the hell out. You call for a national conversation. As far as I can tell both US presidential candidates are advocating door #2, as is almost everyone else.

So what’s the debate you want? You can talk door # 1 or # 3 with their advocates on the right and left, I suppose. But is it in fact a conversation you want? It seems more likely you seek a confession, similar to your own, from other advocates of invasion that everything is a big clusterfuck [and perhaps adding as corollary: Bush must go!]. You’re not likely to get that, for obvious reasons.

11

a-train 09.17.04 at 3:51 am

With a liberator like Bush, who needs a dictator?

12

Sam_S 09.17.04 at 4:06 am

Like it or not, the CBS blunder is a story.

You can compile lists of all the bad news in Iraq and see that it’s a mess.

You can also make lists of good news, and note that some progress is being made, however difficult.

It’s the numbskulls who obsess on either list and bang their little tin drum for “abandon all hope” or “everything is just peachy in Iraq” (are there any of those left?) who are the truly useless ones. Well, useless to the people of Iraq. Neither of the two obsessive camps are going to come up with any solutions.

13

John Quiggin 09.17.04 at 4:14 am

“It’s amusing how you want to talk about issues again, now the Bush AWOL thing has blown up in your face.”

I didn’t see any mention of the memos here on CT until the last few days when the disconnect between the triviality of the issue and the extent to which it has dominated public and blog debate has become impossible to ignore.

And if there has been more than a passing allusion to the whole issue of Bush’s Vietnam record, I’ve missed it.

14

Martin Bento 09.17.04 at 5:42 am

I want to second WeSaferThemHealthier here. Those who supported this war, and now see what a disaster it has become, have an obligation, if they are intellectually serious, to explain why they were so wrong and how their thinking has changed. Pre-emptively calling yourself names to neutralize others’ doing so is transparent and frivolous. Particularly, if you, as most war supporters, were dismissive, sarcastic, or venemous to those of us who, as you now admit, were right all along. Apologies may well be in order. Parading bad judgement as a badge of honor is a trifle odd, you must admit.

And, no, I don’t buy “it’s all execution”. I’ve yet to see a credible detailed account of how this war *could* have worked out well, barring miracles, given the facts on the ground at the time.

15

MQ 09.17.04 at 5:46 am

More thoughtful “realism” from the pro-war right…the situation is complex in Iraq, I find it confusing and it gives me a headache, no one can really say anything clear about it. So let’s spend our national time & attention on the latest pseudo-scandal being pushed by the right wing echo chamber. God, I really hope we can marginalize these types somehow, after all the harm they’ve done and continue to do to my country’s security.

The situation in Iraq is complex all right, but the trend lines in military and civilian casualties are all measurably and clearly going in the wrong direction. And the people actually there are increasingly reporting the same (bad) news.

16

Tom T. 09.17.04 at 6:18 am

John Q., doesn’t your point tend to cut against Belle’s? If CT contributors write about the topics that most interest them, why should other bloggers not be similarly free to choose their topics in the same way?

As for Belle’s point about the lack of a national debate on Iraq, I would suggest that it stems in part from the lack of articulated positions, and hence identifiable differences, on this issue from the major presidential candidates. Neither Bush nor Kerry has much to offer in the way of a thought-out policy, so the debate devolves into muddled variations on muddling through.

17

Walt Pohl 09.17.04 at 7:49 am

I think we’ve taken a big step towards the day when formerly-pro-war people must set themselves on fire in public to atone to the anti-war side. (Though hearing the bloviations of the still-pro-war side and realizing you once agreed with these people is almost suffering enough.)

Bob, do you have a link to that Tacitus post? I looked around and didn’t see anything.

18

ArC 09.17.04 at 9:44 am

Just a bit of repetition: jdw is 100% correct – they really do believe this shit. (In general, that is. I make no specific claims about Reynolds because I don’t read him.) I mean, people have told me straight up that they think the documents found to date back up the Swift Vet liar’s group, or that the insurgency in Iraq is not a growing problem. And then they attack me for being deluded.

In my limited experience, it is not productive to converse in these situations.

19

John 09.17.04 at 12:33 pm

You know, I was against the whole thing from the start, from a military perspective, and I wasn’t the only one. There was a significant number of people who did the math and could tell that the risks didn’t outweigh the benefits. We knew that the regular Iraqi army would roll over in the blink of an eye, and the regime would fall. We also knew there’d be a quagmire afterwards, with a country-wide popular insurgency propelled by a variety of different groups, making the country a chaotic terrorist breeding ground, and leaving us with no exit strategy.

No, it doesn’t feel terribly good to be right, but thanks for asking.

Something else I should bring up: a lot of people keep saying that “Well, the mortality rate for U.S. soldiers is nowhere near the Vietnam levels”. Keep in mind that body armor has improved vastly since Vietnam, as has combat field medicine. What used to kill a person can now be treated by a squadmate, at least enough to get them stabilized till the medic gets there, and the medic gets them stabilized on the way to the Casualty Collection Point, and the CCP keeps them stable enough for the flight back to Rammstein. The wounded rates are horrifically high.

20

bob mcmanus 09.17.04 at 3:08 pm

“Well, yeah. They’ve been pretty assiduous about sticking to the designated timeline for most of 2004. And there has been a bevy of Administration officials basically stating outright what’s going to happen this fall in-country prior to elections. Are you really not seeing any of this? It’s somewhat astonishing that an informed person would that that the President “continues to talk about Iraq as if it is May of 2003.” comments, which can run 300+ on some of Bird dogs posts

Tacitus also mentions at least one current major offensive, North of Baghdad I think. All in comments. I just hear bombings of Iraqi cities, and don’t use a map enough to see if they connect into a campaign.

Tacitus has returned from Redstate.org and is very busy in the comment sections, cleaning out the ill-mannered and trollish that have accumulated during his abscence. He will ban people for provocative assertions made without facts or links. One of the reason I read Tacitus.org is the extended conversations in the comment sections from some very informed people about military matters and foreign affairs. Tacitus, in a thread of 300 comments, will be 20-40 of them. Quite unusual blogger.

Tacitus is partisan, and is currently of course in Bush defense/Kerry attack mode. But some of the best comment threads on the web, because Tac works on them.

I myself plead guilty to slight hyperbole, and of course my assumptions in that graph should not attributed to Tac.

21

bob mcmanus 09.17.04 at 3:13 pm

But the assertion about Fallujah being attacked Nov 3 came from a news story, a quotation by a military commander on the ground or rotating out. News story in the last week, I oughter google it up, but got to get my 2nd cup of coffee.

22

DaveC 09.17.04 at 3:41 pm

The whole “fake memos that were accurate” issue wasn’t even commented about on CT until Sept 15, so my guess is that the stupid bloggers out there like Glenn, Charles, Patterico, etc are just trying to get some attention. I think that the emphasis should be put on the other CBS issue, the JEW SPY IN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION story that 60 minutes also broke, and Newsweek ran with for two weeks in a row (one two page article, then a Periscope article, which was twice as large as their 3 sentence and 1 photo Beslan coverage). How is that investigation going, anyway?

We heard over and over and over about the Plame affair, but the Sandy Berger incident, well, stealing and destroying documents that were classified Top Secret- Codename doesn’t merit attention from the press or CBS.

The pictures of Abu Ghraib were all over the news for weeks: here again Newsweek included a large photo of prisoner humiliation in an article about Chalabi, along with a large sidebar that had photos of those JEWS Perle, Feith, and Wolfowitz, suggesting that they ordered torture. What failed to be covered was the attacks on the prison in April that resulted in dozens of Iraqi fatalities, and the actions of our soldiers that saved many prisoner’s lives.

Sudan and Syria gassing civilians in Darfur is another problem, but I think that the UN Security Council will make some sort of resolution and then everything will be all right. No, seriously, there are bad things happening all over the world, in Russia, Sudan, Nepal, Kashmir, Zimbabwe, Indonesia, Burma, and the fact that the US is not engaged in these places does not make their situation any better.

I would suggest that y’all check out some Iraqi bloggers, or read Allawi’s comments responding to Kofi Annan’s opinions about the war in Iraq. I don’t think that anybody said that changing Iraq would be easy. Pre-war predictions of hundreds of thousands of casualties, millions of refugees and all-out civil war haven’t happened at that magnituude.

Consider North Korea and South Korea. American troops have been stuck in SK for 50 years. I think it has been worth it.

23

a different chris 09.17.04 at 3:41 pm

>the equivalent of telling a happy story to comfort a scared child

Well, that’s pretty much Bush’s America for you. That’s what they want, that’s what he gives them.

24

Matt Weiner 09.17.04 at 4:38 pm

baa, I don’t think it will do to say “some people say Iraq is going well, some people say it’s going poorly” and call it a draw. There are some ground-level facts we can work from:

At a briefing earlier this month, a high-ranking US officer in charge of the zone’s perimeter said he had insufficient soldiers to prevent intruders penetrating the compound’s defences.
The US major said it was possible weapons or explosives had already been stashed in the zone, and warned people to move in pairs for their own safety. The Green Zone, in Baghdad’s centre, is one of the most fortified US installations in Iraq. Until now, militants have not been able to penetrate it.

If you accept the major’s premise, then I think it’s hard to escape the conclusion that Iraq is a total clusterfuck. And since we are about to choose whether the people responsible for that clusterfuck will get to continue to direct the country for four more years, it seems like a relevant fact to bring up.

In other words–why shouldn’t other advocates of invasion admit it’s a clusterfuck, if it is one? The facts don’t seem that hard to evaluate.

25

WeSaferThemHealthier 09.17.04 at 4:42 pm

Walt Pohl,
“I think we’ve taken a big step towards the day when formerly-pro-war people must set themselves on fire in public to atone to the anti-war side.”

Well, it’s an interesting idea that’s worth investigating. Nevertheless, I would much prefer people signing up and going to Iraq ( as combat infantry, of course ).

26

WeSaferThemHealthier 09.17.04 at 5:03 pm

I’d like to know: What other contributors to CT have at any point in time been in favuor of the invasion of Iraq?

27

james 09.17.04 at 6:03 pm

I supported the war in Iraq. The support was based solely on Iraq’s repeated attempts to shoot down US war planes in violation of the cease fire treaty from the 1991 war. Based on the history of the occupation of Germany and the Philippines, I expected about 5 years of post war violence. Failure to take into account external support for violence in Iraq was a mistake. I still support the war.

28

Dan Hardie 09.17.04 at 7:12 pm

‘I’m very sorry to say this, but we are f%$#ed.’

Dear Belle, you are wrong, and furthermore your wrongness indicates that you personally are spineless, a coward, not in favour of resistance to jihadis and morally worthless. Not being rude but you are. This is because:

1) The war in Iraq is splendid because the more people the US military kill in Iraq, the fewer they will have to kill in the US – oh, did I mention this has a catchy ‘flypaper’ metaphor attached to it? (Mark Steyn, Gregg Easterbrook, some washed-up Canadian who came up with the metaphor, every chickenhawk in the blogosphere);

2)The war in Iraq is insufficiently splendid, but only because we have yet to attack Syria and/or Iran, who are of course the only reason for the insurgency’s success (Mark ‘consistency is a virtue only to the sane’ Steyn, Charles Krauthammer);

3)The war in Iraq is splendid, and for anyone who thinks, for example, that Tony Blair has anything to apologise for, I have a really storming joke about Trotsky and Stalin to prove that ‘Marxist humour really isn’t an oxymoron- also, I will prove that said war is splendid by making up silly rhymes in response to Guardian articles; second childhood, isn’t it fun? (Norman Geras).

4)The war in Iraq is insufficiently splendid, but only because we have yet to definitively impose non-Sharia law on the Iraqi population, which would presumably have to be done by the British and American armed forces, and would be an incredibly smart move aimed at decreasing violent Shi’ite attacks on our troops (Ophelia Benson, and if she has the brass neck to complain about inaccurate summaries she can stop telling blatant lies on her own website, and can also tell her catamite Jerry to stop deleting any poster who calls her on said lies);

5)The war in Iraq is splendid, gosh let’s change the subject, and now let me explain that we didn’t declare war on terror, terror declared war on us, as is proved by the Beslan atrocity, and no I’m not going to mention Russian atrocities in Chechnya- these, by definition, are non-terrifying, non-terrorist atrocities (David Aaronovitch);

6)The war in Iraq is splendid, because we are bringing freedom to Iraqi Arabs, who are child-abusing cowardly terroristic sicko adherents of the Religion Of PeaceTM (LGF in public, and one wonders who else in private);

7)The war in Iraq is splendid, but a war on North Korea would be even more splendid, and should be declared forthwith (Johann ‘Of military age’ Hari).

8)The ‘war’ in Iraq was not a war at all, as witness the tiny number of US and UK casualties, but was still splendid (Christopher Hitchens, various Slate articles in April and May 2003, reprinted in ‘A long short war/Regime Change’);

9)The war in Iraq is splendid, despite the high number of US, UK and indeed Iraqi casualties- about whom, having quoted some poetry, I shall now maintain a dignified silence, showing that I, unlike those who pontificate about dead GIs, fully understand the nature of these brave sacrifices (Christopher Hitchens, in Slate a couple of days ago).

I could go on, but my contempt for these people rises by the day.

29

Kimmitt 09.17.04 at 8:22 pm

We cannot discuss the war in Iraq, because the very act of noting that things are going badly would be perceived as wishing that things would go badly.

30

Alfredo 09.17.04 at 8:32 pm

The simple response from conservatives would be that it’s the liberals’ fault that the Iraq liberation did not work, because domestic oppositon weakened the country’s resolve, just like it was said of the Vietnam War. This does not make any sense, of course, but it since it’s almost unfalsifiable, it works for them.

31

baa 09.17.04 at 8:43 pm

Matt,

I don’t think the FT article you and Belle cite supports the degree of pessimism expressed. Let’s stipulate that it’s 100% accurate. Even so, while it’s bad that the US coalition can’t completely secure the green zone, such complete scurity does not seem to be a necessary condition for successful occupation. If once every month there’s an attack in the green zone — does this mean the occupation has failed? Would not this judgment depend on what else is happening in Iraq? Does the current lack of green zone security mean that security can not be restored? All I see from both sides are fragments of the picture, eagerly snatched up and stretched to represent the entirety of the conflict. Again,

The Belmont Club post Belle links (and dismisses) suggests that the vast majority of attacks are concentrated in a few regions. Do you regard this as irrelevant, or could it mean that pockets of resistance, though strong, are isolated, and do not represent the situation throughout Iraq?

32

Mark 09.17.04 at 8:54 pm

Is the view of the majority of Iraqis that their liberation was not, in fact, a failure, of any consequence to the left? Or has the left abandoned the last pretence of caring about the actual people who stand to suffer most from the left’s continued support of genocidal dictators?

33

geeno 09.17.04 at 10:09 pm

My own attitude toward the war was always “What’s the rush? he’ll be there tomorrow”. Certainly taking Sadam out was a good thing, for us AND the people of Iraq, but I saw no reason to rush, and it was very rushed. Set things up with the allies, get all of your ducks in a row, THEN invade. As soon as I saw the looting in Baghdad, I knew they blew it. They went in unprepared for what they were, very predictably, going to face.

34

geeno 09.17.04 at 10:12 pm

Parenthetically, I regard myself as a leftist. War is a ruthless enterprise; mistakes never go unpunished.

35

Walt Pohl 09.17.04 at 10:50 pm

Mark: If you tried actually participating in a conversation rather than just casting weird aspersions on “the left”, it would be good for your soul.

36

sevenless 09.18.04 at 8:55 pm

Just a friendly reminder, for all the baying warmongers, ex-baying warmongers (remorse-stricken or maybe just realising that, hey, shouting for the mass death of foreign strangers is just, like sooo 2003), propaganda-fronting “journalists” of BBC, CNN et al., generals, politicians and ordinary schlubs who either didn’t bother to fact check their nation’s grave decision to invade, bomb, torture, maim, occupy and rape a nation that never attacked it — or perhaps secretly revelled in being powerful, untouchable and bloodied with revenge —

There is blood on your hands.

37

liberal 09.19.04 at 4:25 pm

mark wrote, Or has the left abandoned the last pretence of caring about the actual people who stand to suffer most from the left’s continued support of genocidal dictators?

Moronic. Not attacking Iraq at the time of Bush’s choosing does not equal support of Saddam.

In fact, if you actually knew anything about history, you’d know that some people who supported Saddam when it was convenient—and Saddam was killing a lot more people—are in the Bush administration:
Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein: The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984

38

liberal 09.19.04 at 4:34 pm

james wrote, I supported the war in Iraq. The support was based solely on Iraq’s repeated attempts to shoot down US war planes in violation of the cease fire treaty from the 1991 war.

Have you ever heard of the concept of “cost benefit analysis”? Just because Iraq tried to shoot our planes down doesn’t mean that we should have invaded.

Based on the history of the occupation of Germany and the Philippines, I expected about 5 years of post war violence.

How would the situation in post-war Germany (a European nation essentially inhabited by a single ethnic group speaking a single language, with no recent history of colonial occupation) be at all relevant to that in Iraq?

And the mention of the Philippines is particularly amusing—how many Philippinos died in that American occupation? And what was the rationale for the occupation?

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