Cheney’s question

Well, but an al Qaeda takeover of Iraq is STILL risibly improbable, even if every US solider were out of there tomorrow. Nasty civil war, yes; Shiite fundamentalist takeover, yes; massacre of Sunnis and secularists, yes; but Sunni fundamentalist takeover? Not enough of them.

But the war’s basic premises always involved ignoring the differences between Shiites and Sunnis, anyway . . .

Sunni fundamentalist takeover? Not enough of them.

Sheerest wishful thinking.

Sunni/Ba’athist reassertion of control is not inherently implausible, they still probably have a majority of men with military training, certainly at officer-level. For a restoration regime like that, foreign and local fundamentalists would be indispensable allies against the shi’ites and kurds, just as al qaeda et al were to the Taliban.

soru

And there was me thinking OBL, Zawahiri and Co. were wandering the mountains of the Northwest Frontier. At least that is where Cheney’s legions are supposed to be looking for them. Now we are to believe, it seems, that Osama himself is in Iraq. Withdrawal? Not till we get the bugger!

“After defeating the Nazis, we had to maintain a military presence in Europe, despite the protests of the local population, in order to prevent a capitalist takeover.”

What is a ‘capitalist’ takeover? I understand a ‘Soviet’ takeover. But ‘capitalist’? Didn’t you mean ‘American'(and isn’t that patently absurd)?

Sheesh. You can’t even get your moral relativism right.

Steve

Chris Bertram,

You’re forgetting a few things. As Uncle Joe would have it, it is

“After defeating the Nazis, we had to annex lots of land, ethnically cleanse the inhabitants and maintain a military presence in Europe, despite the protests of the local population, in order to protect Mother Russia.”

as a direct consequence of that brilliant policy, the only options are (a) its continuation or (b) an Al Qaeda takeover of Iraq.

It’s as if the Supreme Court set aside the 2000 elections and installed. . . a consultacracy!

Solutions not directed at actual problems? Check.

Expensive, self-perpetuating programs? Check.

Arrogant, incompetent administrators? Check.

Ye gods.

The one thing the aptly named “Dick” Cheney failed to mention of course was the threat to the ‘free world’ from an Iraq essentially run and controlled by Iran. Why could this be do, we all think? And why is Soru so concerned with the non-existent threat of a resurgent Ba’athism, and not concerned at all with the fact that the US have handed large chunks of Iraq over to the Mullahs of Teheran? And why is Christopher Hitchens (“I hate Islamo-fascism except when I don’t”) not on the case?.

The mysteries deepen, eh?

Cheney asks
“Would the United States and other free nations be better off or worse off with Megatron, Starscream and the other Decepticons in control of Iraq?” he asked. “Would be we safer or less safe with Iraq ruled by robots intent on harvesting all the energon?”

Hitler was more of a threat to the United States than Stalin, at the time (having declared war on us and all).

The Soviet Union was more of a threat to the United States at the time than the Taliban (I don’t need to persuade you of this, do I?).

Saddam Hussein was a lot less of a threat to the United States at the time than Al Qaeda.

That’s one reason why Gulf War II, which made it a lot easier for Al Qaeda to operate in Iraq, was a stupid idea.

(Note also that U.S. soldiers in Western Europe may have been there over the objections of the local populace–or some portion thereof, I don’t have polls–but the local populace wasn’t going so far as to kill them most of the time.)

The folks who were in favor of linking Sadam with alqeda kept ignoring the pesky little facts of alqeda attacking his regime

Can you point me to a source for that ‘pesky little fact’?

Only Islamist attacks I have heard of on saddam were from Shi’a groups like al-Da’wa.
http://middleeastreference.org.uk/iraqiopposition.html#dawa

soru

y81 sez: I don’t conclude from these examples that … the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a mistake.
Some of us think that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was as much a mistake as the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
(Yes, I realize that y81 probably mistyped, but whatever he meant to type was probably almost as stupid.)

Is it your thought, bob, that being deliberately obtuse is the way to win an argument among grown-ups? My statement would be properly excerpted as “I don’t conclude from these examples that defeating . . . the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a mistake.” If it were to be interpreted as you suggested, there would have to be commas after the words “Nazis” and “Afghanistan.”

“…the Iraqi political leadership has called for a schedule for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Does this mean that the Iraqi political leadership has abandoned to global war on terror and welcomes the victory of the terroritst?”

Is it inconceivable that the Iraqis have been prevailed upon by Washington to make that request?

It does sound outrageous, I know; but if there is a new assessment that the US can’t beat the insurgents, or at least not quickly, and/or the insurgency is only continuing because of the US presence, and that the Iraqis could handle it better without them, BUT the Administration could never publicly admit it…. is there any other way the Administration could honorably pull out, other than by getting the Iraqis to ask them?

I don’t know how this looks to more knowledgable people, but support for the Administration is plunging in the polls, and they must be motivated to reverse the trend. Aren’t there mid-term elections next year in the US?

I say,”Sunni fundamentalist takeover? Not enough of them.”

To which Soru responds, “Sheerest wishful thinking. Sunni/Ba’athist reassertion of control is not inherently implausible”

Soru, you don’t seem to be grasping the difference between Sunni Islamic fundamentalists and Baathists, here . . . That’s another one of those differences, like the difference between Sunnis and Shiites, which Cheney and his allies ignore in their public deuiscussions of the war.

A neo-Baathist takover of postwar Iraq is not the same thing as an al Qaeda takeover.

“Would the United States and other free nations be better off or worse off with (Abu Musab al-) Zarqawi, (Osama) bin Laden and (Ayman al-) Zawahiri in control of Iraq?”

I think we’re all about to find out.
.

Soru

With due respect, how can any reaonable person think that Al Qeada or any terrorist organization is going to takeover Iraq. Come on, really. Iraq is 60% Shia with a least a large portion of that closely allied with Iran and with a strong militia. The Kurds form another 20% and are also heavily militraized and not subject to takeover. At best, the Al Qeada types would have western Iraq, but again, my money would be on the traditional tribal structure asserting control.

Really, this Dick Cheney comic book representation of Iraq is beneath serious consideration.

Chris Bertram might be interested in the latest evolution of his old “get Milosevic” pal Marko Attila Hoare. Like Hitchens, he has dropped any pretensions to the left and is railing at the uppity natives here and there from the pages of the Henry Jackson Society (http://www-hjs.pet.cam.ac.uk/) where he is Section Co-Director for Greater Europe. Frightening, just frightening. Oliver Kamm is associated with the project as well, which should come as no surprise. Hoare dropped in on Doug Henwood’s mailing list to briefly troll for bombing the Islamofascists into submission. He was driven off like a pig at a bar mitzvah. The “patrons” of the Henry Jackson Society (Jackson was known as the Senator from Boeing) are a real rogue’s gallery:

Bruce P. Jackson–President of the Project for Transitional Democracies

Robert Kagan–Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

William Kristol–Editor, The Weekly Standard

Vytautas Landsbergis–Former President of Lithuania

Michael McFaul–Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution;
Senior Advisor, National Democratic Institute

Joshua Muravchik–Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute

Richard Perle–Former American Assistant Secretary of Defence

General Jack Sheehan–Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic

James Woolsey–Former Director of the CIA

See, kiddies, that’s what happens when you demonize the Serbs. Straight from NLR into the neoconservative dustbin of history.

bro b.

you may be right they may have thought this. if so, they are imbeciles. Islam is a big place, and not all of it is tribal.

The ‘they’ as in ‘they’? I do hope you understand that the ‘they’ are not the ‘they’ that are elected. And secondly, how long does Islam continue to expand without a reformation? The Vatican pre-reformation was tribal. Christianity pre-reformation was as Islam is today, fundamentalism with no room for Biblical debate, and with one brand name. Count the brand names in Christianity today, in your own town or city, then on one hand count the brand names in Islam. In religion, diffusion of dogma lessens the threat of fundamentalism.

Christianity pre-reformation was as Islam is today, fundamentalism with no room for Biblical debate, and with one brand name.

This doesn’t make any sense.

For one thing, to assert that Islam has “one brand name” is just flat-out wrong; depending on how you count and who you include, there are between nine and twelve major Islamic sects and movements (including Sunnis, Shiites, Sufis, Wahhabis, Ismailis and so on). It’s also hard to compare Islam of any era directly to Catholic history, since Islam has never had a central “church” body in the way that Christianity has.

Second, it’s hard to see how a proliferation of sects or “diffusion of dogma” necessarily connects to the threat of fundamentalism. Islam’s history of diffuse religious jurisprudence arguably “diffuses dogma” to a much greater extent than your average Christian church (and helps to explain why it’s less prone to developing sects), but this hasn’t staved off the threat of fundamentalism in the Islamic world. Come to think of it, the multipicity of Christian sects in North America hasn’t staved off the threat of fundamentalism here, either; it’s civic constitutional restraint, not “diffusion of dogma,” that has kept the would-be theocrats of the religious right at bay.

That Islam is sorely in need of a reformation movement is plain; problems go deeper than just the recent rise to prominence of Salafis, Khomeinists and other revolutionary Islamic movements. How that happens I’m unsure — but I am reasonably sure that half-baked attempts at “regional transformation” are doing the precise opposite of hastening it.

Some of this sounds like declaring that you never should have carved out the tumor, just because if you walked away from the operating table before the patient was stablized, the patient would die of massive bleeding, or a bit later of peritonitis.

We’re not DONE. Wars are NEVER justified on the basis of what things are like halfway through. They’re justified, if at all, based on what things are like years afterwards.

So stop demanding that the surgeon walk away from the table RIGHT NOW! Your desire that this particular patient die on the operating table just so that you can be proven right is amazingly ghoulish.

Yes, Brett, no one could possibly be against this war now for any other reason than the desire to be “proven right”.

“Oh by the way, we cut your legs off as well…”

“By the way, we cut your legs off and sold your house to pay our medical bills. Yeah, I know that says ‘Bandaid @ $20 each’: that’s what they cost, dickwad.

“Oh and while we were doing it, we kind of couldn’t stop a bunch of thugs coming into the operating theatre and nicking your money and beating the crap out of you while you were under anaesthetic… Don’t worry we locked some of them up and tortured them. Oh that was your family? Sorry, they all look the same to us.

“Now how about some gratitude?”

brett: Among other things, your (weak) analogy assumes the person standing at the operating table is a (competent) surgeon with a reasonable chance of success. From what has been seen so far, that assumption is at least worthy of questioning.

Here’s a thought:
This week’s rationale for our presence in Iraq is that “we must prevent an al Qaeda takeover”.

But some of us remember that LAST week’s rationale for our ongoing occupation of Iraq was that we are there to “install democracy.” (…this was the rationale LAST week, BEFORE we found the Interior Ministry’s secret torture prison….)

But, anyway, if we’re fighting for democracy: why don’t we simply ask the Iraqi government to hold a referendum on the continuing presence of the Occupation army? After all, they’re already holding an election next month, it would be trivial to add such a question to the ballot.

The Iraqi people could democratically have a voice in their future, and – since opinion over there is running at about 80% for our immediate withdrawal – we would then have justification for leaving. A little democracy, and we could have the troops home for Christmas.

I’m being snarky, but i’d like someone (ideally, George Bush) to tell me why this is simply inconceivable.

A war can be won on the ground overseas and lost in Washington.

Laird’s piece in Foreign Affairs was interesting (probably a good idea to provide a link if you’re going to pull quotes from it), but it’s really not the sort of thing you want to be quoting as gospel.

The picture he presents of the years after ’73 is seriously misleading AFAICT: his assertion that the Viet Cong was “defeated” at that point appears simply false, and he skates over the inconvenient matter of South Vietnamese corruption eating up huge quantities of aid money (which was one of the reasons why Congress wasn’t willing to continue bankrolling South Vietnam). So, the “Vietnamization worked” part of his thesis — and consequently, his claim that the war was “lost in Washington” — is questionable at best.

This makes it a lot harder to make sense of his advice on “Iraqization,” which differs from Vietnam in ways crucial to the particulars of any such policy, e.g. more centrifugal forces at work and an insurgency that appears to have totally infiltrated the apparatus of government, for starters.

“A war can be won on the ground overseas and lost in Washington.”

I guess that’s true if you define winning as ‘creating a puppet regime that needs constant massive outside aid in order to survive’.
By that definition the Soviet Union won in Afghanistan.

With due respect, how can any reaonable person think that Al Qeada or any terrorist organization is going to takeover Iraq. Come on, really. Iraq is 60% Shia with a least a large portion of that closely allied with Iran and with a strong militia. The Kurds form another 20% and are also heavily militraized and not subject to takeover

And those demographics are largely unchanged from the days of saddam’s rule. Trained, equipped and hardened men were what counted when the Ba’athists defeated the post-Gulf war revolt, no reason that won’t apply again. And that is an area the Sunnis still have at least parity in now. But, not in a year’s time, _if_ US training is allowed to continue. Last chance saloon for the Ba’athists, now or never for them, they can’t afford to be too picky about their allies.

If they ever were – it amazes me that the same people who talk of the CIA planting false flag bombs also discount the possibility of the ba’athists ever doing such a thing. Meanwhile, a group signing itself ‘al qaeda in iraq’ is distributing leaflets threatening anyone who testifies against saddam in his trial…

You can, of course, add and subtract outside powers to a port-withdrawl civil war to get any result you want. Perhaps Syrian assistance to the Ba’athists and their Islamist allies could cause overt Iranian asistance to SCIRI and al Da’wa which causes the Saudis to decide to deal with their Islamist problem by persuading them all to head off North, but then…

Anyone can make up scenarios where any side comes out on top. But the underlying unfortunate fact is this: Bin laden might or might not win an election in Saudi Arabia, but he would have an excellent chance of winning a civil war there, absent US/UK military support for the monarchy.

Given the military, economic and religious power of Saudi Arabia, that makes complete withdrawl from the region never something that could be risked by any US president. The options are Iraqi majority rule, ideally democratic, or various varieties of rather bad things.

soru

“A war can be won on the ground overseas and lost in Washington.”

Don’t you think the Viet Cong were in fact defeated, defeated by the NVA? The suicidal Tet Offensive was brilliant, in a cold-blooded military sense, for the NVA, it solved two problems, disposed of the rag-tag VC, and at the same time handed the American anti-war movement an American ‘defeat’ that the media bought into and the American public was all to ready to accept.

Just read David McCullough’s 1776 and if I were blogging during December of 1776, I’m sure most of the posters would be calling the revolution a lost cause. The performance of Gen. Washington’s army make the current Iraqi army seem somewhat stellar. But then again, that was then, and now is now.

if I were blogging during December of 1776, I’m sure most of the posters would be calling the revolution a lost cause.

So, you think the British should have stuck it out until the Americas were “stabilized,” no matter how long it took or the cost in lives, and no matter how clear it was that the rebels enjoyed momentum and popular sympathy (whatever their military setbacks)?

Geeze, the “rebels” may enjoy momentum and popular support on counter-Earth, orbiting on the far side of the planet, but from what I hear on THIS world, they’re really pissing people off by murdering peaceful Iraqis, and are highly dependent on supplies and troups coming in from Syria and Iran.

Geeze, the “rebels” may enjoy momentum and popular support on counter-Earth. . .

Yeah, “counter-earth” indeed.

In 1776???? The ‘rebels’ enjoyed zilch.

I’ve always understood that a roughly-estimated forty to forty-five percent of the colonial populace, distributed differently depending on geography, supported the Whigs at the onset of war. But maybe McCullough argues that percentage started out lower (say around ten to fifteen percent) and increased as the war went along? If so, I guess maybe I can see why you’re bringing it up as a comparison to Iraq.

So, what you’re saying then is that as the rebellion gained momentum in 1777 and beyond, the British should have made an open-ended commitment to quelling it? Perhaps if that was going to be too expensive in terms of men and materiel, they should have Americanized the conflict by focussing on training and equipping the Loyalists to replace them as colonial governors?

There should be some new comment thread rule whereby anyone who claims that the U.S. actually won the Vietnam war up until our mysterious decision to withdraw is automatically deemed to have lost the argument.

No doubt. Particularly so if said claim comes bundled with any species of “stabbed in the back” bromide about the Tet Offensive.

Vietnam War redux

The Vietnam War, like the Korean War, were part of the post-WWII strategy of containing the USSR. Both tactical wars, violent and deadly and misread as strategic wars, but in the end just part of the overall strategy to bankrupt a Soviet-funded world-wide revolution.

The Vietnam War, like the Korean War, were part of the post-WWII strategy of containing the USSR.

Sure, it was part of that strategy; the messed-up part. Partly because the people involved (as even Laird admits) made the mistake of thinking that Vietnam was interchangeable with Korea.

No more messy than the Greek losses before the Battle of Marathon.

Or Persian losses at Marathon, for that matter. Guess the Persians are lucky you weren’t around back then to give them military advice, their empire might have collapsed a lot sooner. ;-)

(Since you’re keen to dig into classical history, though, you might want to look into the meaning and origin of the phrase “Pyrrhic victory.” I also recommend this rather intemperate rant by Gary Brecher on the perils of comparing modern counterinsurgency wars to things like the Battle of Marathon.)

“After all, it can’t be argued that the “democratic process” to this point has done a great deal to shore up the legitimacy of the Iraqi government it produced.”

I think maybe you mean that you don’t agree with arguments to that effect. Because it sure as hell can be argued, and is. Respectable turnout, decent margin… Sure, some groups boycotted the election, but if they were disenfranchised it was only by their own choice.

If the current Iraqi government isn’t legitimized by that election, there aren’t many democratic governments that ARE legitimate.

Because it sure as hell can be argued, and is. Respectable turnout, decent margin…

Producing a government with no meaningful sovereignty…

(The Arab world knows all too well about largely-cosmetic election processes, of course; it’s not like the Bush Administration is an innovator in this regard.)

Actually, not comparing anything but the ‘messiness’ … isn’t that why folks want to avoid all warfare, the messiness? (remember, your choice of terms, not mine)

No, my choice of terms was “messed-up,” because I thought it would be marginally classier than saying “f*cked up.” (“A-ha! Proof that know-it-all antiwar hippies hate sex!”)

And I notice you snuck the “avoid all warfare” strawman in there, which hopefully doesn’t mean you’re yet another movementarian who’s refighting the Sixties with some distorted Birkenstock-clad hippie stereotype in his head. (I don’t know many “folks” who “want to avoid all warfare,” personally… but I know plenty who won’t cheerlead for silly, unjustified or criminal warfare. Perhaps to your mind there’s no difference?)

“The Vietnam War, like the Korean War, were part of the post-WWII strategy of containing the USSR.”

I thought Vietnam was all about containing the dangerous menace of Red China? Anyway, it is hard to dispute that even if we had never fired a shot in Vietnam the Soviet Union still would have collapsed at about the same time it did.

I see, so you’re defining “meaningful sovereignty” in such a way that they posess no sovereignty at all until we leave, even if they want us there. And, yes, their elected government DOES want us there, for at least a little while longer.

Defined in these… interesting terms, the claim that the election didn’t result in a legitimate government says nothing whatsoever about the election. It only says that the resulting government and our government aren’t complying with the left’s demands.

“This of course is precisely why they do not want you there.”

Which is to say, their “little while longer” isn’t all that different from Murtha’s proposal (which was for a six-month long withdrawal process). I don’t know that anyone’s saying withdrawal could be accomplished by Saturday or something.

And yes, the sovereignty situation is a Catch 22. However unfair it seems, one of the realities of life is that once you get into some situations, there aren’t any redeeming solutions — just a selection of bad ones.

There is a fundamental difference between, on the one hand, the Iraqi government making the democratically legitimate decision that it can do without further direct US support, and on the other, the US government deciding it is no longer going to provide such support, whether or not it is asked to.

Well, frankly, when you have data that indicates the bulk of the population supposedly represented by the Green Zone government wants you gone and / or dead, one would have grounds to conclude that you’re not being “asked to” provide support by anyone who “defines the reality of the situation.” Even if the Green Zone politicians hadn’t chosen to side with anti-occupation sentiment, Murtha’s proposal would have seemed correct and reasonable in light of the reports we’re able to read on our continent. That they have chosen to do so lends it (and other proposals similar to it) some extra weight, obviously.

Incidentally, is the reference to “people on another continent” meant to be a jab at Murtha? You do realize he stated that he was moved to propose what he did in part by his experiences on a fact-finding mission to Iraq, right?

Well, frankly, when you have data that indicates the bulk of the population supposedly represented by the Green Zone government wants you gone and / or dead, one would have grounds to conclude that you’re not being “asked to” provide support by anyone who “defines the reality of the situation.”

http://www.pollingreport.com/terror.htm

‘Do you think the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain important information can often be justified, can sometimes be justified, can rarely be justified, or can never be justified’

never justified: 33%

I am unconvinced of the merits of government by opinion poll, let alone third party reports of opinion polls that do not show the questions asked, categories present, and raw numbers.

soru

Cheney is brilliant- next time I get chewed out at work I’m going to say to the boss:
“Hey, would you rather Zarqawi, bin Laden and Zawahiri were doing this job?!”

Doc, that the left would benefit politically from things going to Hell in Iraq, preferably while Republicans are still in charge, is transparently obvious. So when you advise a course of conduct which would have the effect of making that destination essentially unavoidable, the inference as to your motives is obvious.

Yeah, maybe you think a bad end is inevitable, and just want to accelerate the timetable a bit so it happens before Bush leaves office. That’s the positive spin on things, and it’s still awfully ugly.

Doc, we are currently fighting in Iraq, alongside the Iraqi government, a foe whose idea of how to fight “us” is to murder wedding parties. Not because they want to free Iraq from our hated yoke, but because they want an unfree Iraq with themselves as the jailers, a state of affairs they enjoyed under Saddam.

To imagine that we’ll improve the situation by leaving before the Iraqi government is fully prepared to deal with these monsters is absurd. But it WOULD improve the situation here, for Democrats, that much is obvious.

Is it so difficult to believe that others might have more credibility than you do when talking about the issues and probabilities here?

Such people certainly exist, but they are not the ones advocating an american-led withdrawl, for internal america-oriented reasons.

soru

I do think Bro. Doc is a neo-con … who else would spend Thanksgiving day with head bowed before a monitor? We at the monastery stuffed ourselves … and today? Turkey sandwiches!
Out,
Bro. Bartleby

Bro. Doc! A freeloading Canadian?! Like the wayward brother-in-law that moves in, a bit quiet at first, then settles in and enjoys all the comforts of … of what dear sister and her husband provide, free of course. After a further bit, begins spouting his likes and dislikes — his opinions! Even going so far as to voice how the world should be run! And when the burglar breaks in and empties the pantry, the home owner giving the burglar chase, and back in the living room, wayward brother-in-law takes control of the remote and gives voice to the unsafeness of the house and his crazed sister’s husband that would actually give chase to the fleeing burglar.