“A War We Just Might Win”
VIEWED from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.
Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.
After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated — many sensed they had the wrong strategy, were using the wrong tactics and were risking their lives in pursuit of an approach that could not work.
Today, morale is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference.
That was from the New York Times.
SDA readers won’t find this surprising at all – Yon and others have been reporting it for weeks;
The most important and best-known example of this is in Anbar Province, which in less than six months has gone from the worst part of Iraq to the best (outside the Kurdish areas). Today the Sunni sheiks there are close to crippling Al Qaeda and its Salafist allies. Just a few months ago, American marines were fighting for every yard of Ramadi; last week we strolled down its streets without body armor.
RTWT.
Update – Discussion at NRO.
(Speaking of “others”, Michael Totten has another Baghdad dispatch.)
albrotros you forgot jean chrétien , who , with his wry and winning Shawinigan accent, announced “zéro hélicoptres”, or paul martin who grinned and did nothing.
Do you suppose that the cheif editors for the notorious NYTs have too much ROMULAN ALE or SARIAN BRANDY?
alan, you forget, Jean Chretien was elected to a majority government (democracy in action eh) after he announced that he intended to cancel the EH-101. Now I’m sure that the cons would be screaming that he had broken an election promise if he had not cancelled the EH-101.
So you think this is a good piece eh? Hmmmp. Interesting. I have some property in the Everglades you might also be interested in.
Salon’s Glenn Greenwald absolutely destroys this editorial. I mean he kills it, and demonstrates that you shouldn’t trust these guys to competently cut your lawn let alone comment on the situation in Iraq.
Read it and weep:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
The American Victory in Iraq may even turn out to be as glorious as the American Victory in Vietnam was!!!
alby,
You have, as I expected, fully evaded the question. It matters little at this point whether or not the Americans should have invaded Iraq; what is important is the outcome. I note in your formulation that you mention the cost of defeat to the Americans, but not to the Iraqis. Any halfway ethical individual who is not completely in the thrall of anti-Americanism realizes that the only choice is to place their support behind those most likely to produce peace in Iraq: the US Army.
All that aside, the Hussein regime’s failure to play ball by international standards and respect its treaty obligations guaranteed only the continued suffering of the unfortunate denizens of that country. While Iraq in its current state fails to meet many of the standards of functioning states, it is presented with the one thing Hussein withheld from it — the prospect of progress, and of a truly peaceful future. The major difference between the Iraq of 2002 and the Iraq of 2007 is that instability is no longer institutionalized in the form of a repressive and genocidal state security apparatus. If your IR perspective is that of the structural realist, roughly translated as supporting whatever regional badasses happen to be most congenial to the maintenance and exercise of a given hegemonic power, I applaud your dogged (if condescending) consistency but lament your immorality. Those fortunate to be born in free societies should recognize their obligation to assist struggling peoples in the assertion of their natural rights, a fact conveniently eclipsed by stances that prize power politics over that which is just. If you are a humanitarian who is interested in the best interests of the Iraqis, you will admit as much; if you are merely an anti-American, you might as well drop the pretense and admit to the same. I’m afraid there are quite few middle ground choices that can be made.
In the interests of fair and reasonable debate, I will ask you again: what do you think should be done? Do you have a plan, or does your position consist of mere opposition without substance?
Seriously… are you guys aware how badly the American’s have screwed things up? They’ve literally handed billions and billions of dollars over to corrupt contractors who have robbed the Iraqis blind. Bush & Company belong in jail.
Your ignorance is inexcusable. That you can’t see this means that you are either blind, or really, really stupid. Frankly I’m surprised you guys have survived to adulthood without choking on marbles.
John,
Childish ad-hominems aside, you fail to advance any proposal as to what should be done. Do you have any suggestions?
So far as I’m concerned, if you aren’t anti-American these days, you’re an idiot. The Americans have gone over to the dark side.
There have been so many lies, and so much corruption that there is no reason to trust them until they get it under control, and it’s not going to be an easy job.
Frankly the only thing to do with Iraq, is for Bush to beg the UN to send in the Blue Helmets. They’ve helped keep the peace in troubled places around the world for nearly 50 years… when they’re allowed to do their job that is.
This done… then they go after the corporations and contractors who have raped the shit out of Iraq for the sake of a greasy buck. This has been documented time and time again as part of the failed neo-con policy that even you guys would see it if you bothered to read about it.
By all means though… continue to listen to guys who’ve been wrong again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again.
I know the “agains” are a bit excessive, but the that’s for all the extra failure.
The NY Times is so wrong on this it is bizarre. The corner HAS NOT been turned. Iraq is a disaster comparable to Vietnam – in the end it will probably be worse then Vietnam.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/073007.html
“Nearly a third of Iraqis need immediate emergency help as conflict masks humanitarian crisis.”
OXFAM
30 July 2007
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/applications/blogs/pressoffice/2007/07/nearly_a_third_of_iraqis_need.html
John,
With respect, the legitimacy of the UN extends as far as North America and Western Europe, societies stable enough to never require UN intervention. Virtually all others, and this is especially borne out by the Iraqis I have conversed with, loathe les bleus with a passion fed by the UN’s own record of corruption, incompetence, and scandal. Practically without exception, the world’s major and minor conflicts have been resolved by nation-states and their organized militaries, not by transnational organizations operating under rules of engagement so restrictive as to make their presence irrelevant. This much is demonstrated by the fact that between the inception of the UN and the fall of the Soviet Union, the organization was incapable of any meaningful intervention because of Cold War deadlock in the Security Council, and that once the so-called ‘new world order’ era came to pass it proved incapable of preventing conflict or protecting civilians. I hasten to add that any UN force would largely consist of the US forces anyways, and that the UN forces have (with the exception of some minor US-led operations in Korea) been used in a counterinsurgency role. I thus ask you respectfully to roll the dice again and come up with something a little more comprehensive..
Leftdog —
The Vietnam War produced some 314,000 coalition combat fatalities and over one million wounded against over a million NVA dead and 600,000 wounded. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-5 million civilians were killed, and large swaths of the country were devastated. While I understand the impulse towards facile historical comparisons between Iraq and past US wars, I’m afraid yours is a bit shrill.
Jim, you’re feeding the trolls dude. Just ignore them and presently they will go away.
Doesn’t it strike anyone here as rather coincidental that the Bush administration vowed repeatedly not to leave Iraq until “victory” is achieved, and now, with the American public now declaring the invasion to the be a mistake, the House controlled by the Dems, Bush (and, to be fair, the whole of the political elite) tracking dismal approval ratings, and a presidential election a little over a year’s away, that there are signs that “the surge is working”?
Here’s how Iraq is going to go down, in every sense of the word:
– Militarily, the troop surge will sufficiently quell enough violence to convince agenda-pushing freelances like Yon and even stalwarts of the MSM (see NYTimes, above) to report that military victory has been achieved.
– This assessment will be bolstered by Gen. Patraeus’s report in September.
– Both these assessments will be reflected to some degree by reality, since there’s no doubt that flooding a country with troops will snuff out the violence there — temporarily. The question, however, is whether security will hold after the surge is gone. From the insurgent’s perspectives, the smartest strategy is to simply lie in wait until a better opportunity for war-making presents itself.
– The US military and politicos recognize this fact — that Al Qaeda has only been temporarily quieted in Iraq, but has not been smashed, and indeed, is back to pre-9/11 strength — but this fact does not matter, as only a temporary peace is needed to fulfill the US’s new immediate objective, which is a partial withdrawal under the false guise of “victory” (see below).
– Both these assessments will also acknowledge, but not adequately highlight, the facts that military victory in Iraq is necessary but insufficient to the security of Iraq, and that lack of progress on political, social, economic, and sectarian issues will eventually rend the country back into civil war. These insights will not be fully acted upon.
– In the meantime, this fragile peace will give the Bush administration the window of opportunity to pound home the message that the surge was successful (to be reverberated uncritically by blogs such as this) and thus a partial, gradual withdrawal may possibly begin in the spring (conveniently, 6 months prior to the election). Already, this message is being parroted by military officials, White House spokespersons, radio call-in shows, conservative pundits and bloggers, etc.
– The first troop withdrawal will begin prior to the November 2008 election. This will be accompanied by the PR message that while (a Republican-led) America has been “successful” in Iraq, the country still requires US security oversight, and thus a military presence will remain there on a semi-permanent basis. However, they will serve now only in a training capacity for the Iraq Army, which will be expected to carry out the duties of direct policing and counter-insurgency. This arms-length approach will appease the public, who object only to death tolls but not to a US foreign military presence.
– In any case, the American public will hear only that the troops are coming home, a “success” that the Republican presidential candidate will claim as sufficient evidence that Bush was right and that another Republican should thus be elected to continue to pursue the War on Terror, whereas the Dems, with their summer ’07 “pull-out now” message, would have guaranteed “failure” in Iraq.
– The fact that American troops will remain there will become irrelevant, as their military actions will no longer be sufficiently interesting (i.e., low casualty rates) to warrant front-page news coverage.
– The fact that Iraq will eventually revert to sectarian civil war will also become irrelevant, as neither the American public nor the Bush admin ever really cared about the well-being of average Iraqis. The renewed violence there, which will not begin until after November ’08, will, out of sight from the Western media, be met with a heavier hand by an increasingly despotic, but US-backed, Shi’a government.
– The US support for a Shi’a government in Iraq will offer the bonus of creating a back-channel with the Shi’a government in Iran, allowing for covert diplomatic negotiations while continuing to “win over” the general public with a faux-resolute stance against the “Iranian threat.”
– The old strategy was always about securing US foreign policy interests overseas (including, but not limited to, energy). Either years on, with a more pressing objective looming on the horizon, the new strategy will be about re-securing the White House for the Republican Party, thus confirming the old adage that for politicians, the main goal is always to get re-elected.
Kate, I thought you dumped the moron out the door. Why is he back? Quit giving this waste of taxpayer’s dollars a forum, he isn’t worth it.
albratros,
“Invading Iraq to stop the “oppression” of the Iraqi people was the last thing on the minds of Bush Co. After the last four years of American occupation the Iraqi people were far better off and faced a far better future under Saddam Hussein.”
This didn’t answer my question and it is in fact a false statement. Please refer to the
“Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolution of the United Nations
Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its
civilian population thereby threatening international peace”
It was number 7 on a list of 23 in http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ243.107
Pretty high up on the list. Certainly not last.
Please stop projecting your own distaste for the US into the discussion
Oh, so UN involvement means that it’ll become a good thing?
So John, I guess this means that you’re fully supportive the UN and it’s member countries actions in Afstan?
John, present evidence for your arguments or shut up. Of course, America is so evil, and only an idiot can’t see that. They’re free, rich and yes, a superpower. They do stupid things, like invade Iraq. So what’s your point? You’re drinking the Islamofascist koolaid buddy. If US was only source of nastiness and evil, you might have a point. Look around, you naive idiot.
Here’s a suggestion. Stop attacking US, especially on her soil. These lefties who hate America but cheer attacks against her are utter hypocrites. US has been restrained thus far, you ain’t seen nothing baby. Wait till John, Taliban Jack and other useful idiots get US into isolationist mode (can you spell Democrat?), ensuring both attack on their soil and massive, perhaps nuclear response. Oh that will be their fault too.
USA gets attacked, it’s their fault; if they respond they are evil. Only an idiot can’t see that, right John? Your ideas are very dangerous, but you have a right to express them, and I have a right to call you an idiot.
I’m curious Alby, what was your (or your dad’s) course number at Cornwallis?
It’s funny that you think pointing out how deeply flawed your arguments are is “trolling”.
If I’m a little abrasive, it’s because I’m so effening tired of putting up with conservatives who keep screwing up, and not acknowledging it. It’s time for tough love.
As for the UN… is it flawed? Deeply. And Western nations contribute to this heavily. Any body as far reaching as the UN is going to be complex, but we still need to work it through.
The Americans in Iraq have no legitimacy. They’ve completely blown it with their mismanagement, lies, double standards, and over-all douche-baggery.
john,
Anyone who sees the UN as an improvement on the US is a fool. Period.
The US can’t leave Iraq without the place going from bad to much, much worse. The US started the war, it owns it (think Powell’s pottery barn analogy.)
Not all conservatives were for the war at the outset (I was against it on the basis of it being the wrong target – I’d have preferred Iran) but once there, the job either gets finished or the Iraqis will be the ones to suffer.
Those who were against the war have to realize that we can’t go back in time. What is done is done. We start with now and go forward. To go forward means that no matter who is power in Washington, there is only one exit strategy with honour: leave a stable Iraq. Not a perfect one, not a paradise, but an Iraq that is liveable for the people of Iraq. Get behind that concept not to support the US or Bush or any of the people you hate but because you should not let your hatred of the US et al lead to the suffering of the Iraqi people. They didn’t elect Bush, they shouldn’t suffer for it. The left seems not to care about the suffering that would be caused in the wake of failure. They care less about human suffering and more about their hatred. It’s not pretty and they left will have to answer for their sabotage and their ugliness. The left has caused more death and misery and suffering than any other idea or ideology in history. To be left is to be hate, to be death, to be viscous.
The left has become unhinged from reality (probably long ago but it’s much worse now.) The idea that the whole Iraq war was to steal oil is the most absurd, illogical foolishness I’ve ever heard. Wouldn’t you think it would be easier to bribe Saddam than kill him if all that was wanted was oil? Do you not know that the trillion dollars they spent on this war could have bought every single publicly traded oil company on the entire planet and most of the oil container shipping companies too? If it was all about oil and nothing else, they could pay for it in cash like they do the oil of other nasty countries. Chavez is no friend of the US but the US still buys their oil. Ditto Nigeria and a few dozen other crapholes.
The UN is ineffective (at best) because the very regimes most in need of UN attention have a voting bloc to protect themselves and block reform. The UN’s very problem is that the worst dictators and thugs have the same vote as Canada and other democracies and there are more of them than us. To fix the UN you have to scrap it and start over. Just like the League of Nations was scraped and replaced with the UN.
In fact, those most in favour of the idea of the UN should be the most pissed off about how the organization has been mismanaged. Those most in favour of the UN should be most in favour of making it work effectively. That seems not to be the case and I can’t see why.
The concept of sovereignty must also be re-evaluated. The status quo is that the leader of a country owns sovereignty over it. That is false. The only true sovereignty rests in the people. The people LEND their leader their sovereignty only through regular, fair elections. If you have not been elected, you have stolen sovereignty from its rightful owners and are illegitimate. The leader of a country serves the people, the leader doesn’t own the people. A leader is a public SERVANT. The time of kings and dictators is over. The time to recognise the dignity and rights of the people.
Thugs and other illegitimate usurpers of power may be granted a voice in any new organization (in the same way that you try negotiation as a first tactic to any problem,) but they should be given no vote, no chairs on committees and no power. Only then will the organization start to be an effective and positive force on the world stage. In addition, voting membership should be suspended for any leader who overthrows a democracy. In fact, the membership of any state should be eliminated by any change in the system of government and that state should have to re-apply for membership and prove eligibility to be re-instated.
This will still remain a flawed organization (as all human endeavours must be,) but it would be a drastic improvement over the farce and caricature that the UN has become.
By Alby….Sorry (tard is it?) I was aircrew and didn’t wear low shoes, I wore aircrew boots and we didn’t require carrying a weapon on most occasions. There are advantages to having a higher IQ and not being in the army.”
““I mean no disrespect to current and former members of the air force. Just moonbats who try to claim otherwise.”
A little late for that now isn’t it?”
Guess what Alby…Kingstonlad(I refuse to call him a tard)has more respect and common sense in his little finger then you have in your entire body.
I AM EX-AIRFORCE. I wore combat boots as a Flight Engineer. I buried 22 of my fellow aircrew and civilian CASARA people in crashes involved in SAR. In 1987, my fellow FE took my flight at 0600 to help search for a missing aircraft in Kananikis(sp?).He,the two pilots,and 8 civilian CASARA died in the crash of Twin Otter 107. Guess who was first on the scene to try to find survivors? The ARMY,from Calgary!I flew out that afternoon,on another Twin Otter,with 4 SAR techs,to the crash site.They found one survivor,not publicized or known.She was so badly burned,that all they could do was give her morphine. Do you know what its like to watch a fellow member die doing their duty? Have you ever been into a crash site? Have you ever had a little guy hiding behind you in the Gaza as some nut tried to kill you,and him? Yeah Alby. I was there,with the Useless Nations,under some wierd plan called the MFO. You see Alby.That is what a Forces is. We don’t care if you are Army,Navy,or Airforce.We all fight for our country.We fight for the right for you to have your freedom of speech. Kingstonlad,nor I,have nothing to apologize for. YOU have that same right because of guys like him and me. I don’t know Kingstonlad.Who knows. Maybe I was one of the guys who made sure he left the Herc to do his job. But in my mind I saluted everyone of them out the door.We were sending them into Hell,and they did it willingly,so that you and I could have this forum. Oh.And for your info,20 years ago,I was buckling my ass into a Herc,on the button of runway twenty in Namao,when the tornado ripped through Evergreen trailor park. We literally sat in awe at what we were seeing.And then we helped. THAT is the military you seem to hate so much. I will,even today,save your butt,but I will expect payback.
Justthinkin
“Have you ever been into a crash site?” Oh several actually. I spent 13 years total flying SAR. I found burnt human flesh combined with avgas smells almost exactly the same as roast beef. Funny I still can’t bring myself to eat roast beef any more. Do you find that?
MFO eh? Which Roto???
Is this Neil P. maybe? Or, oh wait, maybe this is Rocky D.?
albatros39a@yahoo.ca
I guarantee if you were an FE in Namao in 87, I do know you.
BTW in the early 90s we switched from combat boots to aircrew boots. The same as combat boots with minor changes such as tread and eyelets.
Shamrock –
7816
Shamrock
No sorry 7827, my course in Borden was 7816.
h2o273kk9-
The point is there are people in the Congo being repressed more so than the people were being repressed in Iraq.
However the US who wants us to believe they were concerned with the well-being of peoples in other lands, but doesn’t seem to think people in the Congo count. One must assume that repression of people isn’t really the top priority in the minds that run the US. So why not the Congo if Iraqi repression was important? Is it because they are black, or that they have no oil?
The problem is with no WMD or terrorist connections to justify the war, the repression of people in Iraq is now the only excuse they have for their invasion.
Don’t for a moment believe the propaganda that the Iraqis are better off. As soon as the Americans pull out the whole country bill blow up in civil war. They were better off under the repression of Hussein than the future brought on by the Americans.
Alby – thanks. I’m one of those who sorta believes you, though it’s still a mystery to me where you got your attitudes about the CF. So you went through Cornwallis in spring 78? I was course 7830 myself – 6 Platoon B Company. Paddy Doucette was my NCO.
Shamrock, in the US the black power structure essentially grew out of the 1960s Civil Rights movement.
This power structure, composed of the Congressional Black Caucus along with the Rainbow Coalition, the NAACP, and many other large black organizations, exercise a great deal of control relative to government direction in international race initiatives.
For a number of decades now this power bloc has vigorously tried to characterize all racial injustice as white people oppressing blacks.
They have very forcefully tried to turn America’s eyes away from situations where blacks are responsible for atrocities to other blacks.
They have wanted to keep the onus strictly on situations where white people can be characterized as the problem. And to assist American foreign policies directed at black-on-black crime would go a long way toward creating awareness of black being the culprits in some cases.
This is exactly what they do not want to happen. We have been suffering with this situation for some time.
I direct this to you rather than to albatros39a, as he has demonstrated again and again that for some reason he simply loathes America as is regrettably such a ordinary state of affairs with the Canadian left.
The thing that an American is most struck by when reading him is how he conspicuously is never outraged at how CANADA is not doing anything to address the object of his concern. This flabbergasts Americans. He has a country, he has a government, he has government procedures for raising and distributing funds, and he never once mentions Canada doing anything.
Anyway, I’ve enjoyed your posts and am able to see that you have a much more even-handed appraisal and evaluation of US policy.
Alby,
No one from the Congo flew planes into any US buildings.
The US wants to overthrow evil dictators and give muslims a chance at democracy to give them hope and stop the influence of terrorists.
This was stated in the addresses to the public that Bush made pre-invasion.
You can say that this isn’t gonna work, but you can’t say that the US is there now for any other reason.
If they were there for revenge, they’d be home now.
If they were there just for WMD’s on to kill Saddam, they be home now.
If they only wanted to kill some terrorists, they didn’t have to put boots on the ground in the first place.
and no, I am not making a direct connection between saddam and 9/11.
The concept is that the bush admin thought that Iraq would be easier to turn into overthrow and turn into a functioning democracy because it was one of the more secular of the bad places that muslims live.
Implimented differently, it may even have worked. Not securing the boarder was the cardinal sin of that whole thing. Not maintaining the ba’athist infrastructure not far behind.
“though it’s still a mystery to me where you got your attitudes about the CF”
Do you ever wonder why LGen Roméo Dallaire ended up as a “Liberal” Senator?
Warwick: The US wants to overthrow evil dictators and give muslims a chance at democracy to give them hope and stop the influence of terrorists…The concept is that the bush admin thought that Iraq would be easier to turn into overthrow and turn into a functioning democracy because it was one of the more secular of the bad places that muslims live.
But if that were the case, they would’ve stayed in Afghanistan and concentrated their democracy-exporting efforts there. No, Iraq was about US foreign policy interests, which includes but is not limited to energy needs. I refer you to this essay. No doubt, you will take one look at the source and your immediate impulse will be to dismiss it out-of-hand. I urge you instead to read it all, and reflect carefully on the fact that regime change in Iraq was part of the US foreign policy agenda long before 9/11. Fighting terrorism provided the pretext, but was not the reason, for invading Iraq.
Breaking news about the so-called “oil draft law” and foreign control of Iraq’s oil deposits, as predicted by the thesis argued in the AlterNet piece I cited above.
Alby, no I don’t; nor do I care. Your bad attitude about military seems to have nothing to do with your being a Liberal. You just have a bad attitude, not Liberals’ fault.
Shamrock, if you really want to know, my e-mail address is albatros39a@yahoo.ca