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Ignatius: Fiddling While D.C. Burns

by BooMan
Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 11:31:27 AM EST

There is a certain kind of wisdom, we can call it "conventional" or "insider" or "beltway" wisdom, that places a tremendous amount of emphasis on America's "prestige". I spent a few hours last night reading about our nation's policy toward Chile in the 1960's and early 1970's. It was interesting. Our intelligence agencies and wise men agreed that we had no vital interests in Chile. But they still saw it a grave threat to our prestige to have the Chilean people elect a socialist leader. So we spent millions to destabilize and ultimately topple Salvadore Allende's government and replace it with a savage military junta. That didn't do a whole lot for our image in the world. I don't think it added to our overall level of prestige. Unless, that is, you base our prestige on how much other nations fear us.

Our adventure in Iraq is hurting our prestige in both senses of the word. It has been crippling to our moral standing in the world. But it has also exposed us, once again, as a paper tiger. If the Bush administration hoped to prove that we could sustain casualties without cutting and running, they have not proven that we can mobilize the nation (through a draft, increased taxes, full deployment, and industrial efforts) to accomplish a military task. We can take casualties...for a while...but only if the casualties are all volunteer and the war is paid for by our children.

David Ignatius doesn't really understand this. To David, our problems can be solved by firing Donald Rumsfeld. He sees the revolt of the generals as merely a matter of Rumsfeld's leadership.

David Ignatius Washington Post Donald Rumsfeld Iraq Chile

Rumsfeld should resign because the Bush administration is losing the war on the home front. As bad as things are in Baghdad, America won't be defeated there militarily. But it may be forced into a hasty and chaotic retreat by mounting domestic opposition to its policy. Much of the American public has simply stopped believing the administration's arguments about Iraq, and Rumsfeld is a symbol of that credibility gap. He is a spent force...

On the surface, I can agree with this assessment. Our soldiers will never be defeated in Iraq. The war is not lost because our soldiers have done a poor job. The war is lost because we do not have the national will to impose the resources, not to mention the level of violence necessary, to turn the different Iraqi factions into quiescent actors subservient to a central government. We can't get it done. Ignatius wants to soldier on. I think he knows the truth...but it all about the prestige.

If the Iraqis can form a unity government -- and that's certainly a big "if" -- they will need America's help in pulling the country back from civil war. America now has a better military strategy for Iraq, one that puts more responsibility on Iraqi forces and emphasizes counterinsurgency tactics. And it has a political strategy that is at last reaching out to all the different Iraqi communities -- Sunni, Shiite and Kurd -- rather than to a handful of former exile leaders. This political-military strategy may fail, but it's too soon to make that call. To buy some time, the administration needs a new political base. If it continues with the same team, it will get the same result.

He's says it is too soon to make the call over whether our strategy may fail. But, the strategy has clearly failed. It's over. Replacing Rumsfeld is a good idea...but not because his replacement will buy the Pentagon more time in Iraq. The war is lost. And the blame lies in the people that brought you mushroom clouds, and mobile bio labs, and links to al-qaeda, and Abu Ghraib. They lied us into war, and they made life worse for the people they liberated. Why would America support that?

Ignatius: Fiddling While D.C. Burns | 28 comments (28 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Ignatius: Fiddling While D.C. Burns (4.00 / 4)

Conventional wisdom though Hoover would be a good President.

It hasn't changed much in 80 years.

Obama is a Patriot

by Steven D on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 12:23:34 PM EST

Re: Ignatius: Fiddling While D.C. Burns (4.00 / 5)

Too soon? Is he waiting until everybody is either dead or wounded and Baghdad burned to the ground before he's willing to concede failure? That might not even do it. If I ever go back to school, I want somebody like this guy grading my papers.

by Chris on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 12:34:07 PM EST

Re: Ignatius: Fiddling While D.C. Burns (4.00 / 4)

The war is lost because we do not have the national will to impose the resources, not to mention the level of violence necessary, to turn the different Iraqi factions into quiescent actors subservient to a central government.

Someday, let us pray that liberals will finally see the folly of thoughts like these. NO level of violence imposed by an outside force will ever achieve acquiescent 'peace.' It's sheer nonsense.

Just like the 'if only' nostalgia from those who still believe we could have "won" in Vietnam if we only had the will & fortitude. As Robert Fisk is fond of saying, "an utter failure of the human spirit."

Why would America support that?

Annnie Zirin:

We can hardly be surprised that a section of liberals continues to take their marching orders from the Democratic Party. There has always been a wing of American liberalism that has fully supported the project of U.S. imperialism, and their class interests find expression in the Democratic Party. These were the Cold War liberals that backed and helped prosecute the McCarthyite witch-hunts on communists and who were the architects of the Vietnam War. These were the liberals who supported Bill Clinton's "humanitarian" wars in the 1990s, and who saw economic sanctions on Iraq as an alternative to war. "The task of liberal realists," notes John Pilger, "is to ensure that western imperialism is interpreted as crisis management, rather than the cause of crisis and its escalation. By never recognizing western state terrorism, their complicity is assured."

". . . the more educated you are, the more indoctrinated you are. After all, propaganda is largely directed towards the privileged." -Noam Chomsky

by Arcturus on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 12:46:29 PM EST

Re: Ignatius: Fiddling While D.C. Burns (none / 1)

I'm not sure whether my point was clear. We certainly are capable of being just as ruthless as Saddam was. We simply lack the will to be that ruthless. I don't see that as a bad thing. I see it as a very good thing. Nevertheless, it could be done.

by BooMan on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 12:53:38 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Ignatius: Fiddling While D.C. Burns (none / 1)

O, I get your point; I just reject its flawed premise.

NO amount of violence will enable an occupying power to permanently achieve its aims. Hussein & Tito both had a nationistic base to draw from that an occupier will never have.

We certainly are capable of being just as ruthless as Saddam was. We simply lack the will to be that ruthless.

Nonsense. That's true only if one has a case of terminal amnesia. You've read enough history to know better.

Hussein was an amateur compared to the history of US ruthlessness in the world. Hiroshima, Operation Phoenix, East Timor, & Operation Condor for starters.

We may not have (yet) demonstrated the will to be that ruthless to our own population, but we have more than amply demonstrated time & again both the will & capacity to exceed any of Hussein's crimes.

p.s. From a political perspective, it seems better that Bush ignore the calls for Rumsfeld's resignation & keep the bastards tethered to fall together as teh ex-military voces grow louder & louder. I read earlier that a 6th general has now come out.

". . . the more educated you are, the more indoctrinated you are. After all, propaganda is largely directed towards the privileged." -Noam Chomsky

by Arcturus on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 01:41:44 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Ignatius: Fiddling While D.C. Burns (none / 0)

I don't agree with your analysis.

Hiroshima: I will agree that there is something special about nuclear weapons that makes them more morally contemptible than the mere amount of life they take. But bombing Hiroshima cost less lives than an invasion of Japan would have cost. We could have a debate over whether Japan could have been convinced to surrender through a demonstation on some atoll somewhere, or whether it was necessary to drop another bomb on Nagasaki. But, if you are judging savagery, this is a poor example.

Operation Condor: this was not really an American operation. It was a proxy operation that was certainly supported by Kissinger...but it still is misleading in the way you portray it.

Operation Phoenix: this operation is an example of the kind of warfare we no longer have the stomach for.

East Timor: again, this was not an American operation. It was indisputably one of worst moral failings as a nation. But it has virtually no applicability to the question at hand, which is how much violence we are willing to directly carry out using our troops to subdue an insurgency.

I am as critical of our Cold War policy as anyone, but I don't think your points are relevent to this argument.

Could Iraq be subdued? Indisputably the answer is yes. You raise a good point about Saddam having advantages because his constituency was native to Iraq. But subduing Iraq is still just a matter of developing a police state that is ruthless enough to prevent any resistance. It is the fact that America is not willing to act like Saddam that makes the effort to subdue Iraq hopeless. And it is our unwillingness to ally ourselves with these tactics that make it impossible for us to support some faction in Iraq that can do the job for us.

All this talk of democracy and an unity government is hopelessly unrealistic. We are learning that now as we watch the Shiite government develop death squads and torture chambers.

The whole effort isn't doomed militarily, it is doomed morally.

by BooMan on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 02:04:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Ignatius: Fiddling While D.C. Burns (4.00 / 2)

I would like to point this out regarding operation condor: the US provided communications for the coordination of Operation Condor, from the Southern Command in Panama.

Not only did some CIA agents brag about participating in the bombing of Embassy Row in 1976, but another former CIA agent, Michael Townsley was convicted for his participation in it and later given witness protection here in the US.

But, the most interesting thing to me is Manuel Contreras, who materminded that bombing has accused Bush and the CIA three times of its roll in that bombing. Once before he was tried, once while he was serving his seven years sentence, and most important, when he was finally released from jail. However the most curious thing of all is that although the bombing did occur in US territory, This country allowed Contrera's trial to occur in chile ( a blatant abdication of US legal sovereignty). Had Contreras been tried here in the US, he would have certainly been facing either death penalty (although highly unlikely since chile would have never allow this to happen since there was no legal death penalty in Chile) or life in prison. If this would have occured, I have no doubt that contreras would have spilled his guts to work out some deal with us prosecutors.

Also I would like to point out that the US did have some vital interests in Chile. This little country has one of the most important copper mines in the world. At the time, most telecommunications did depend on it. Secondly, you have to take into account the geo-political situation at the time: most latinamerica has not only going left, but they were doing so in a revolutionary way, and also nationalizing all important industries and companies.And, when they did not nationalize them they were preventing these foreign companies to take their capital away from these countries

If you want me to go back to the place that I was born, tell your corporations to leave my country (Leon Gieco)

by cruz del sur (nicodk@sbcglobal.net) on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 02:48:26 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Ignatius: Fiddling While D.C. Burns (none / 0)

One can argue the examples. It's now documented that the atomic bombs were not necessary to defeat the Japanese. They knew they were defeated & diplomatic approaches were ignored It was a deliberate display of military power to the Russians (as well as beating them to the victory punch).

The other examples were all deliberate US foreign policy carried out by client states & designed to further identifiable US interests. East Timor & Operation Condor would not have been possible without US support & $$$. They are far from irrelevant.

Operation Phoenix (& its offspring, the Salvador Option) are the template for counter-insurgency today in Iraq. It doesn't work, no matter how violent & repressive. Still it was our Plan B once Chalabi didn't work out. It must take some powerful kool-aid to believe that those Shiite torture centers & death squads came into existence without US knowledge, approval & support. The reason we're no longer fully supporting them isn't any moral squeamishness over the violence; it's because we realized it would hand the country over to Iran's allies if it continued to 'success.'

But rather than argue examples, try this out:

For every example of Hussein's atrocities, one can find US examples that exceed it. Weapons of Mass Destruction? Check. State-sponsored terrorism? Mining Nicaraguan harbors - Check. Wars of agreession? Check. Biological weapons on its own citizens? Depends on whether one considers Native Americans in the 18th & 19th C to be "citizens." Medical experiments on its own citizens? Check. Where exactly does Hussein have any claim to greater ruthlessness?

The argument you are pushing here is morally bankrupt.

A counter-example to my argument (of impossibility), though, might be Tibet.

". . . the more educated you are, the more indoctrinated you are. After all, propaganda is largely directed towards the privileged." -Noam Chomsky

by Arcturus on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 03:24:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Ignatius: Fiddling While D.C. Burns (none / 0)

this is dangerous and misleading rhetoric.

You should not bring 18th and 19th century morality into 20th and 21st century debates. In today's world most of founding fathers would be considered monsters. In fact, they were some of the most enlightened people the world has seen.

What are the terms of the debate here? Are you suggesting that there is no qualitative difference between life in America and life in a Stalinist inspired Iraq? Are you suggesting that life has not been better for those that fell into the American orbit, rather than the Soviet orbit?

I don't think that is your point. It seems your point involves America's treatment and policies toward the third world throughout the Cold War, and how our policies had devastating consequences for many peoples. On that we could agree.

But that has almost nothing to do with what this country is willing and capable of doing to put down the insurgency in Iraq using our own troops.

We have seen Bush take several steps beyond where America thought we would go: blowing of the Geneva conventions, using torture, denying American citizens habeas corpus, utilizing domestic surveillance, leveling Falluja...

But there are limits. There are limits that Saddam did not suffer from. Those limits are not military limits, they are moral limits.

Some of the moral limits are reflected in the flawed case for war. America did not spend too much time naval gazing over the bombing of Dresden because there was a total consensus that the Nazis needed to be defeated. If the war had been a little optional sideshow, people would have howled at such cruelty. If you not engaged in a moral effort, even the smallest amount of violence is impossible to justify or rationalize. So, that creates the biggest obstacle to subduing the insurgency. But, there is also the matter of the intrinsic difficulty of such operations. And we simply do not have the national will to overlook our moral scruples and commit to the level of repression and violence that would be needed to create 'stability' in Iraq.

And, as I said earlier, that is a very fortunate thing. Because that is ultimately why we will leave Iraq.

by BooMan on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 03:46:46 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Ignatius: Fiddling While D.C. Burns (none / 0)

My point's a simple one: anything Hussein did, we've done better -- sometime, somewhere.

I refuse to find any moral distinction between doing something to one's own population or doing to others. History does not show that there are moral limits Hussein crossed that we've.

The 19th C was but one example. It's a part of us, a part of our history.

Asis the US giving Hussein targeting intelligence when we knew he was using chemical weapons against the Iranians.

Torture isn't a Bush invention. Acknowledging it is. As Alfred McCoy has documented, what we see at Guantanomo & Abu Ghraib has its roots in experiments on American citizens.

If there were a military solution possible in Iraq that would result in an acceptable (to us) political environment, I have no doubt the American public would swallow whatever level of violence was necessary. It wouldbe a grave mistake to believe that the American public wouldn't accept nuking an Iraqi city if they could be persuaded that it would end the war & kill all the 'terr'ists.' The public isn't too upset about Falluja; they're upset about American casualties & shifting rationales for the war that diminish their sense of righteousness. Otherwise, everyone loves a winner.

The dangerous rhetoric is the claim that there is a military solution or victory possible in fighting a native resistance movement. As I noted below, that seems to come down to a matter of belief.

". . . the more educated you are, the more indoctrinated you are. After all, propaganda is largely directed towards the privileged." -Noam Chomsky

by Arcturus on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 04:25:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Ignatius: Fiddling While D.C. Burns (none / 1)

That quote you referenced by Pilger;

"The task of liberal realists," notes John Pilger, "is to ensure that western imperialism is interpreted as crisis management, rather than the cause of crisis and its escalation. By never recognizing western state terrorism, their complicity is assured."

It's absolutely brilliant in the simplicty of it's truth.

Denial is our most dangerous adversary.

by sbj on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 02:07:26 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Ignatius: Fiddling While D.C. Burns (4.00 / 2)

It is so hard sometimes for me to retain my belief in my own sanity, because this all seems so simple to me.

No one is ever going to admire, or wish to willingly follow the lead any country that persists in behaving like an arrogant, heavy handed bully who has been granted some awesome "right" to stomp around the world, telling other countries who should rule them and who shoulld not, and how that "should be done."

Plain old common sense guarentees this will only breed resentment and cause defensive reactions..how can it not? This does not require a rocket scientist to figure out.

Would the US tolerate ANY of this, from any other country? Not on your life. Just let some ther country try to tell US we cannot deveop nuclear weapons, or need to get rid of what we have, then stand back for some real "shock and awe."

Unless I missed something big, the US has not yet been elected to rule and control the entire globe and all the other countries on it.

But that is exactly how this adminstration chooses to behave. Not via genuine leadership..which when effective, and causes people wish to follow willingly, but through fear, intimidation, and threats of force, that only alienates, destroying all chances of mutual respect and trust, and is certain to lead only to retaliation in one form or another.

This is simple basic wisdom every good parent knows and uses every day, in trying to raising thier children. There is nothing complex about it. You treat others as you wish to be treated. Period.

Maybe I am insane. But if so, I choose to stay this way.

ONward!

by scribe (scribe40@comcast.net) on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 01:12:05 PM EST

Re: Ignatius: Fiddling While D.C. Burns (4.00 / 2)

Boo, sometimes you stun me with the bits of nonsense you throw into otherwise insightful writing. Lack of "national will"??? Maybe you've been reading too much Mein Kampf or something. The war is lost because there was never a way to "win". Even if our soldiers had not screwed up the strategy, tactics, and "hearts & minds" there would have been no victory because victory was never defined except as a fantasy of grateful victims throwing flowers and candy at their oppressors. Well, who knows -- maybe if we keep the occupation going long enough, Stockholm Syndrome will indeed finally kick in.

I guess what really pisses me off about your buying into this "will" crap is that it's a carbon copy of neocon propaganda. Who is it that doesn't have sufficient "will" to "win"? It's you, Boo, and me, and all the other libs and lefties who hate America. You can tell this idea is sheer propaganda because it makes not the slightest sense. It's like saying Humpty Dumpty couldn't be put together again because the kingdom lacked sufficient will to do so.

As far as Rumsfeld goes, I think our side makes a mistake to join in the engineered groundswell of resignation demands. Rumsfeld and the rest are just employees. Bush, as he so endlessly reminds us, is the CIC. He, and he alone, is responsible, not some underling who misled the poor fool yet again. Getting rid of Rumsfeld will do nothing but distract from Bush's and Congress's gross malfeasance. Dems need to respond to calls for Rumsfeld's ouster with "he was just following orders -- the buck stops at his boss. If we're going to fire somebody, that's where we have to start".

Bush is "the first President to admit to an impeachable offense." --Former Nixon counsel John Dean

by DaveW on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 01:17:44 PM EST

Re: Ignatius: Fiddling While D.C. Burns (none / 1)

You've hit the nail right on the head. This war was lost at the precise moment it was dreamed up in the first place.

In medicine where an accurate diagnosis combines with proper treatment and appropriate medication to effectively "win" the battle against a particular threatening condition, failure in any one of these areas leads to disaster.

In policy matters, and especially as relates to war, the same guidelines apply. With Iraq, the wrong diagnosis, applied to the wrong patient, combined with the wrong treatment and medication regimen, has conspired to make it impossible to have a "victorious outcome.

If Bush and the neocons were doctors they'd all be convicted of malpractise and depraved indifference and negligent homicide.

Denial is our most dangerous adversary.

by sbj on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 01:58:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Ignatius: Fiddling While D.C. Burns (none / 0)

I get this same criticism every time I write on this topic. And I think it comes from a total misunderstanding.

When I say we lack the will to do this or that militarily, it is not a criticism, but a compliment. Maybe you are conditioned to see it as a criticism, or maybe you react reflexively to any argument that sounds familiar to the 'how we lost Vietnam' argument.

We lost Vietnam, not because it was unwinnable, but because the cost of victory was morally unacceptable to us as a people. That is not a criticism.

Many on the left insist that wars like Vietnam or Iraq are unwinnable by their very nature. I disagree. There are winnable if you are willing to use enough resources and violence.

Fortunately, we are not willing to do that. Someday soon I hope we learn not to start wars we are unwilling to finish. I hope we never learn the lesson the neo-cons would like us to learn, which is that we should give up our moral scruples and win at any cost.

But, even then, they don't have the will to bring all our resources to bear. I mean, tax cuts in a time of war is hardly the way to express resolve. And that doesn't even bring up the idea that we would be willing to lose a war without even calling up a draft. That's no resolve whatsoever.

To me, you can tell a war isn't worth fighting when the leadership refuses to ask the people to help fight it or pay for it.

by BooMan on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 02:16:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]

religion (none / 0)

With all respect, you get that criticism everytime becaue not eveyone believes in the efficacy & potential of military might. It really does come down to a matter of belief -- i.e. akin to arguing religion.

Citing a "lack of will" implies that one should accept the assertions of that belief. Yhus the argument.

We lost Vietnam, not because it was unwinnable, but because the cost of victory was morally unacceptable to us as a people. That is not a criticism.

No, it's just bullshit that believes the world & human spirit can be reduced to & ruled by military might.

". . . the more educated you are, the more indoctrinated you are. After all, propaganda is largely directed towards the privileged." -Noam Chomsky

by Arcturus on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 03:38:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: religion (none / 0)

you can call it bullshit if you want, but there are many rulers in the world that ARE willing to resort to a level of repression and violence that brings stability, that we are not willing to (directly) embrace.

Examples would be the Soviet Empire, China's control of Tibet, North Korea, the Saudi monarchy, General Musharref, President Mubarak, Saddam Hussein, Tito...

Ultimately, Iraq is not a stable nation-state. It cannot function as an open democratic pluralistic state that respects human rights. Therefore, they are doomed to be ruled with violence and repression.

I know that might not be a popular view among pie-eyed neo-cons, or idealistic liberals. But I have seen nothing to disabuse me of this opinion.

Violence and repression create stability in not a few places on Earth. And for the inhabitants of those places, it is certainly a mixed bag. The people of Saudi Arabia, for example, certainly detest their royal family. But as they look north to Iraq, they must wonder whether it is worth the cost to oust them and suffer a civil war for control of all that oil and gas.

by BooMan on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 04:01:57 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: religion (none / 0)

that we are not willing to (directly) embrace

That's it in a nutshell. It's ethical bullshit to distinguish just we prefer to use cut-outs.

". . . the more educated you are, the more indoctrinated you are. After all, propaganda is largely directed towards the privileged." -Noam Chomsky

by Arcturus on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 04:32:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: religion (none / 0)

you seem to be having a different discussion than what what my article is about.

We have used cut-outs to get around the moral scruples of the people. That's true.

But what does that have to do with Iraq?

Let me lay it out for you.

Is Iraq capable of being stable? The answer is yes. It was stable from 1979 to 2003, with only brief periods of instability, despite being at war and/or an international pariah for the entire time. It can be stable again. We are fully capable of making it stable. But to do so would require a commitment of troops and resources that exceeds what the political climate will permit, and also would involve MOST IMPORTANTLY using our troops (not cut-outs) to engage in extreme human rights abuses.

You and others have argued that we are incapable of doing this. I totally disagree. The Soviets controlled not only their SSR's but Eastern Europe for half a century. They had the same ethnic and linguistic and cultural challenges that we face in Iraq. It can be done, but we refuse to do it. And that is, once again, a very good thing.

You, however, are making a different argument, which seems to be that Saddam Hussein and Bill Clinton....not a whiff of a moral difference between them. I don't care to even debate that type of rhetoric. But, in any case, it is a strawman when applied to this article.

by BooMan on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 04:44:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: religion (none / 0)

But what does that have to do with Iraq?

You believe that there is a military solution possible for an occupier in Iraq & assert it as a fact. It's disputable, rhetorical ideology, not fact. Neither you nor I can "prove" it. I go to another Church.

As I said above, if there were a military solution, no matter how horrific, that would allow us to declare Victory & that the terrorists were gone, I have little doubt the American public would accept it.

I've never asserted that there is no moral difference between Hussein & Clinton. (Straw man? I haven't accused you of approving of the violence involved in a military solution. Please, show some respect.)

However, it's morally hypocritical to pretend to an ethical high road -- that others are evil, while we arewell-intentioned. That belief is one of the most destabilizing dangerous beliefs in the world today. More so than what's being called "Islamofascism." As Blum, Chomsky, & others have pointed out, by the West's own standards, objectively applied, the US qualifies as a Rogue State.

". . . the more educated you are, the more indoctrinated you are. After all, propaganda is largely directed towards the privileged." -Noam Chomsky

by Arcturus on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 05:47:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: religion (none / 0)

I'm not sure how this addresses anything I've said. Honestly.

If we want stability in Iraq we can have it. It would require a total mobilization of the country, a draft, flooding the country with soldiers, and using utter ruthlessness. The Mongols did it. The Arabs did it. Saddam did it.

I think what you are not getting is that I am saying that we are not prepared to act like Saddam or Ghenghis Khan...we are not even prepared to put in more than 150,000 troops. We haven't made any serious effort to subdue the country. And that makes what we ARE doing utterly insane.

We cannot win precisely because we will not resort to the types of heavy handed tactics that would end resistance. Nor are we prepared to stand there and watch some faction, such as the Shiites, do the types of things that are required to create stability there.

We have to go. And then those things will happen as a matter of course and we will be blamed for them.

It is a total disaster. But staying will not do anything but delay the inevitable and increase our complicity in human rights abuses.

Nothing I've said has anything to do with whether or not we are morally superior to anyone else. What we are, is morally developed enough not to do what is required to 'win'.

Saddam had no such scruples. Bush and Cheney seem to have less scruples than anyone of could have imagined. But there is a limit to what the American people will tolerate. And that puts a limit on what our leaders can order to be done.

by BooMan on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 07:33:08 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: religion (none / 0)

You can stomp your feet & keep repeating your beliefs as unassailable fact over & over, claiming I'm not getting what you're saying -- I get it, & reject its premises. Arguing religion, Boo ...

You believe military power can work, & it is our moral scruples (or "lack of guts" as you put it below -- more apt to the schoolyard thinking it is) that prevent us. That's sheer nonsense.

Dangerous nonsense that continues to leave innocent people dead & maimed all over the world -- in the name of whatever one cares to brand it: imperialism, neo-liberalism, globalization -- & there is no evidence to date that there is any limit to what the American people will tolerate, esp. when there is a slight veneer of plausible deniablity to hind behind.

It's the avoidance of that culpability that's fueling my disagreement with the "moral scruples" notion.

". . . the more educated you are, the more indoctrinated you are. After all, propaganda is largely directed towards the privileged." -Noam Chomsky

by Arcturus on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 08:22:31 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: religion (none / 0)

Obviously military power can work. How do you think almost all of the Arabs became Muslims? How do you think America and Australis became a countries of European settlers? How did a town called Persepolis wind up in Iran?

I don't understand the grounds of your argument. Is it metaphysical? Is anything that fails to last forever considered unworkable?

There are ways to act like an Empire and to successfully conquer other peoples. We are not prepared to do those things so we keep surprising ourselves by losing little wars of choice.

What exactly are you disagreeing with?

by BooMan on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 08:30:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]

fantasies (none / 0)

It's a fantasy that military power can be used to win a counter-insurgency war in today's world. It's also a fantasy that the American public restrains our miltary due to moral qualms. Some fantasies are extremely dangerous.

We ignore those fantasies at our peril.

Snagged from a comment on Greenwald's site:

It is left to the leftist denizens of the radical nuthouse to point out that U.S. foreign policy has long used (state-) terrorist methods to slaughter masses of innocent people in places like Vietnam (where American forces killed more than two million people between 1962 and 1975) and Iraq, where more than a million died from US-imposed economic sanctions during the 1990s. The current US-led invasion of Iraq has killed more than 100,000 civilians.
Do the savage U.S. torture camps and brutal state-terrorist “interrogation” techniques maintained and conducted in Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, and Bagram Air Force base, among other locations help the U.S. qualify as a fitting candidate for punitive attack by “the civilized world?”
How about the role that John Negroponte, current U.S. Director of National Intelligence, played as U.S. ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s? Negroponte ran interference for the Honduran security forces in the U.S. Congress, making sure that U.S. military assistance kept flowing to Honduras while those forces conducted a brutal campaign of torture and massacre against that nation's civilian populace. Negroponte’s main job in Honduras, however, was to oversee the terrorist contra camps in Honduras, from which a C.I.A.-equipped mercenary force launched repeated murderous attacks that killed masses of Nicaraguan civilians (see Chomsky, Failed States, p. 151

". . . the more educated you are, the more indoctrinated you are. After all, propaganda is largely directed towards the privileged." -Noam Chomsky

by Arcturus on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 09:53:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: religion (none / 0)

Boo, you honest to god believe that it's "moral scruples" that keep us from "victory" in Iraq? Stunning. Iraq is unwinnable because the age of old imperialism is over. The US would have to occupy that turf for a century to achieve even a poor semblance of stability. Such a generations-long occupation would drain our population and our treasury far beyond even the current disaster. US-occupied Iraq would become the target of guerilla fighters and nations without cease.

You're absolutely right, IMO, that Iraq was not capable of morphing into a free liberal democracy. It is hobbled with feudal theocracy and tribal struggle. That's why it accepted Saddam in the first place: he was willing and able to enforce a kind of peace -- the markets were open, business proceeded, as in any totalitarian state. No dictator rules by force or repression alone. Without the backing of a sizable portion of the population, s/he is finished. The US will never have such backing.

Seems to me you kinda scammed us comparing Saddam and Clinton. That would be a hard argument. OTOH I believe there is no moral difference between Saddam and Bush. I mean that literally, no rhetoric involved. I think the people of this planet see it the same way. Which is another reason flat-out open long-term occupation could not work. Not moral scruples. A nation that did what the US did in Vietnam has not the slightest claim to moral scruples.

I hope you rethink this "will" stuff. Maybe you like sports too much or something -- Will is mother's milk to blabbermouth coaches and motivational speakers. And Leni Reifenstal. If you start telling us how work makes you free I'm going to start seriously worrying about your reading list.

Bush is "the first President to admit to an impeachable offense." --Former Nixon counsel John Dean

by DaveW on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 06:47:58 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: religion (none / 0)

perhaps we are arguing over distinctions that make little difference.

The project in Iraq was doomed from the moment we decided to stay and try to create a parliament.

It hardly matters whether is was doomed because we can't afford it or because we don't have the guts to impose our will.

The world has seen many empires, but never an empire that allowed it itself to be deterred by human rights considerations. It is the imcompatibility of conquest with scruples that dooms latter-day imperialism. And I consider that a most fortunate development. I hope Richard Perle absorbs the lesson.

by BooMan on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 07:14:44 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: religion (none / 0)

It's quite a fiction to believe that it's "the imcompatibility of conquest with scruples that dooms latter-day imperialism." If only there were evidence for such optimism.

What matters is that we learn to recognize our own actions & culpabilities for what they are. Not pointing the finger to someone else when the spotlight is on us. Thjat would take some guts! Failing it, we're doomed to keep repeating them.

There's much in our history that shows moral scruples are no preventive to our committing & sponsoring atrocities. American casualties are the much greater deterrent, along with other political considerations.

". . . the more educated you are, the more indoctrinated you are. After all, propaganda is largely directed towards the privileged." -Noam Chomsky

by Arcturus on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 08:08:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Ignatius: Fiddling While D.C. Burns (none / 1)

Do we really face the same problems that Ignatius does? Rumsfeld is clearly by all measures an incompetent military strategist. If conservatives and neo-cons really do want to wage never-ending war, then replacing an incompetent leader with someone capable does solve an obvious problem.

by Shalimar (srbaxley@yahoo.com) on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 at 01:01:42 PM EST

Ignatius: Fiddling While D.C. Burns | 28 comments (28 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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