Asymmetrical Information

"I'm still not quiiiiite sure that Kerry would have been better for my purposes."

Kerry would have been better just because he carries the Democrat label. A Republican-controlled Congress wouldn't have rubber-stamped his spending impulses.

Not that I voted for either one. . .

We've "manifestly failed" at putting in something better than Hussein?

Huh?

A fledgeling democratic government isn't better than a murderous dictator?

Iraq's government isn't rock-solid stable, and has its problems adjusting to democracy, but it's a bit of a stretch to say the current governmental situation is no better than having Hussein strutting around Baghdad. (In fact, I'm not sure I'd say there's no improvement in the overall-in-general situation; there's a lot more open violence now, but a lot less murderous, repressive police-state.)

Talk of "enough" troops or "a plan" likewise seems a bit odd; there aren't enough troops in the US military to satisfy a certain set of critic (remember that we're close to the long-term limit for rotation and retraining now, as I understand it; we could push more troops for a while, but that would cost in the long run, and putting off an invasion for half a decade in order to build the armed forces up to twice its 2002 size wasn't an option), and Lack Of Troops doesn't seem to be the problem.

"A plan", well, I'm not real sanguine about. An occupation and fighting a terrorist insurgency is something it's very difficult to pre-plan usefully. It could be argued that a deep, intensive plan would be a drawback, as it would be tempting to stick to it even when it turned out to be completely wrong. "No plan survives contact with the enemy", after all. So what's the point of requiring a plan if you yourself admit it'd probably have to be abandoned? All the "plan" I see needful is at the general level of goals ("rebuild stuff", "kill terrorists", "make peace and democracy look more appealing than a ba'athist resurgence"), and I'm absolutely sure they had those goals in mind.

At the strategic level, we always had a plan: "Stay until Iraq can keep itself together without our help". I don't see lack of another plan as a big problem. (Much as I don't see the lack of an "exit plan" beyond "Win." as a problem. But maybe that's just me.)

a) enough troops

Seems that "enough troops" and national humiliation are at cross-purposes.

It's also extremely not clear to me that the types of attacks and suicide bombings we're seeing are the sorts that could be prevented with more troops. We didn't precisely expect them to start doing suicide bombings against Iraqi civilians, but they have. Those aren't the kind of things that "more troops" could prevent. Of course, none of that by itself rules out the idea that perhaps if suicide bombings of Iraqi civilians were going to result, we shouldn't have invaded. But it does suggest that "more troops" is not necessarily the answer to that.

There are also strong positive indicators, like real estate prices and migration that there is at least "something better" in place, at least in the minds of most Iraqis. Polling of Iraqis bears that out as well, such as by the IRI and others.

I trust the migration statistics, the currency statistics, and the real estate prices to tell the truth about the situation more than I do anecdotal newspaper reports.

Maybe I should clarify. There is a cost to America for the invasion, in terms of money, international political capital, and most importantly, the lives of our soldiers. Is what is in place sufficiently better to justify an enormous expenditure of all three? So far, it seems to me that the answer is no. If Iraq manages a stable government that is actually relatively free, honest, and democratic, then I think the answer will be yes. That's why I'm not saying I'm against the war now, but will say so if, in the future, it becomes crystal clear that good government is not going to happen.

As for troop numbers now, I think that they could make a difference, by sealing the borders tighter if nothing else. But even if they couldn't, they unquestionably could have made a difference early on, by securing the vast stores of armaments that were looted at the beginning of the war. They could also have prevented terrorists from establishing footholds in at least some neighbourhoods, which has made the decent people afraid to "collaborate" for fear of retaliation.

@sigivald
"A fledgeling democratic government isn't better than a murderous dictator?"

You mean a puppet government that's democratic in the same way the old Soviet satellites were? And I'm pretty sure the overall murder rate is higher now than before.

While I didn't actually think that the war was a good idea to start with, I think you're being too hasty.

It seemed obvious at the outset that at day one we would be extremely popular with the bulk of the population and very unpopular with some people who would fight back. Gradually, as the realization that merely deposing Saddam would not bring paradise, our popularity would fade, eventually to the point at which being there would bring more harm than good. Hopefully, the native Iraqii infrastructure being developed would by then be in a position to be able to take over. Personally, I put that tipping point at somewhere in the 3-5 time year frame. To me, we're still on target.

Moreover, it was also abundantly clear that the media, at least, would be beating the drumbeat of negative news because, well, that's what they're good at. It's the nature of the media beast to miss a forest of incremental positive developme for the big trees of suicide bombings. If there is ultimate success, it will almost assuredly come at the end of an incessant stream of carping. Recall the groundswell of quagmire talk immediately preceeding the fall of Kabul.

So, basically, I don't really understand why people are suprised, or supporters even overly dismayed. You have to give it a good 3-5 years before making any meaningful judgment. At least, that's what I thought going in.

The question is not if we put something in place better then Hussein.

The question is the US better off for our expenditures of man and materials.

Has the invasion reduced the changes that the US will be subject to another 9/11 or that terrorists would strike in other countries?

Has the invasion made the supply of oil more secure?

Has the invasion improved the US ability to
influence events in the rest of the world?

Has the invasion made it more likely that democratic and capitalistic societies will emerge in the area?

The answer to these question is still open, but the evidence keeps building that the answers are
negative.

The odds have always been very high that the end result would be the break of Iraq. One area allied with Iran and creating a significant threat to Saudia Arabia. One area allied with Syria and a third areas that actively supports Kurdish independence movements in Turkey. In other words, the US invasion ends up hurting out allies and strengthening our enemies. This possibility is probably more likely now then it was before the invasion.

Yet, because people like Sigivald, and the administration he supports, ignored these possibilites and refused to make a realistic
evaluation of the world as it actually exist rather then in their fantasies, we are now in this big mess where even right wingers like our host are withdrawing support .

If after 9/11 the administration had said we will expand the army they would have had no problem getting sufficient volunteers. Yes, it would have taken a year or two to build a large enough army to properly occupy Iraq, but wouldn't that have been a much better alternative then the highly risky, unrealistic one we followed? Essentially every expert on the region and on insurgencies warned this administration that they were making a mistake.
But, our dear leader said God told him he was doing the right thing. I wonder if he ever wonders why God gave him such bad advice?

Of course, doesn't virtually everyone who claims God is telling them what to do claims God told them to do what they wanted to do anyway. I wonder why?

Jane - Get out of New York before it's too late! Your ability to think rationally and your ability to discern truth from error are showing signs of declining rapidly. Get out of the media/liberal N.E. echo chamber and get a clearer understanding of the way things really are.

Look at it this way: Just before the war, you supported the invasion despite predictions by the wars opponents of tens of thousands of US deaths and millions of Iraqi deaths (from starvation, disease, and collateral damage). Somehow, despite these predicted costs (which you may have discounted somewhat) you still thought the war aims were worth the price. Now, with the cost in human lives and in dollars far less than the most optimistic predictions, you think the costs are too high? How come? Either you were too rosy in your hopes for what could be accomplished (and in how long it would take), or you have repriced your cost/benefit analysis.

By any reasonable standard, this has been the most successful war (of any size) the US has ever fought in its history. Have mistakes been made? Sure, thousands of them, both large and small. Have some of those mistakes cost us lives, reputation, and resources? Unfortunately, yes. But the same is true in any war and would have been true without regard to who ran the war. Any human endeavor of any size will involve mistakes. Just name one war of similar size where we have made fewer mistakes, and I will accept the criticisms heaped on the administration as being valid. You cannot, because our casualty rate, the civilian casualty rate, and the speed in which we are restoring the country to civilian control, are all records. We have never done better.

Of course, you would not learn these facts from reading the accounts of the war in the media. Remember the accounts in the weeks after Katrina of the rapes and murders in the Super Dome? We now learn that, for the most part, none of those things happened. Well, the media's accounts of Iraq are, if anything, less accurate than were the accounts of the aftermath of Katrina. You, Jane, are part of the media that has gotten so much wrong in its reporting of Katrina and Iraq. Get out of New York. Learn the facts and report them accurately. Maybe the US can get some of its reputation back.

Your next-to-last paragraph sums up how I and many other non-pacifist Democrats felt about the war from the beginning. I've never opposed intervention on behalf of human rights--I supported Clinton in Yugoslavia, and was only disappointed he didn't go in sooner. When I saw the move to war in Iraq, I didn't trust Bush's motives and disliked the way they appeared to be making up the case and only going through the motions of respecting the inspections regime. But Saddam Hussein was a beast, so would it be so bad if we got rid of him? I mocked Bush, I called them out for the stuff they made up and the evidence they trumped up, but I didn't protest the war and sat back to watch what I hoped would turn out well.

I didn't know there weren't WMD. I didn't know that the government was going to plan so poorly for the aftermath, because I'm not a military expert and didn't know what was needed. I didn't trust Bush to follow through with Iraq because he didn't follow through with Afghanistan and because I didn't think he really cared about democracy or whatever followed Saddam Hussein, he just wanted him out. But I had no way to be certain I was right. I didn't know the extent to which the Bush Administration could deceive ITSELF about the evidence it felt it needed for going to war.

I support pre-emptive war and I support nation-building. I suppose this would make halfway to being a neo-con. Even though I'm a partisan Democrat who has always opposed Bush, I feel the pain of the neo-cons who thought the President was on their side. What I see now, as a result of Iraq, is that the next time a Yugoslavia happens, no Democratic or Republican president is going to intervene. That is a failure for all parties, and for all civilians.

By any reasonable standard, this has been the most successful war (of any size) the US has ever fought in its history.

How on EARTH is this a more successful war than what we achieved in Bosnia? Or Panama or Grenada, for that matter? Even if you think the difference between Iraq 2001 and 2005 is so much greater than the difference between Srebenica 1995 and Bosnia today, how do you even begin to account for the constant loss of American soldiers for years after the fighting was over, compared to almost no casualties in those wars? Heck, even Gulf War I achieved its stated objectives much more clearly than this one did--they just weren't the objectives you value most, it seems?

Defend Iraq all you want--but the lack of perspective here is breathtaking.

Yes, of course, we should re-install Saddam as President and it would only be fair that we give him the names of any Iraqi who collaborated with us. That's the only way to save Iraq now that Bushitler has messed it up so badly. Unless someone has a better idea?

hmmm...

You raise some interesting points.

While most of the commenters have been interested in whether the Iraq war was a good idea, that doesn't bother me much. Freeing the Iraqi people from Saddam was the right thing to do, even if it is hard, and messy, and uncertain to turn out the way we want. And it is going a WHOLE LOT better than Americans think, because they are so deceived by the mass media.

But we have screwed it up quite a bit as well - so ultimately your question is should Americans have supported the effort even if they knew their government would hose it up by the numbers? That's tougher, but like a lot of other things we do I think it will turn out well in the end even though it will turn out to be a lot harder, and take a lot longer, than it would have if the US gov't wasn't so breathtakingly stupid and incompetent.

The other question, however, is the bigger one: Does the Bush Administration deserve the support of conservatives, having governed more liberally than LBJ? Administration officials, pressed on this issue, I'm sure will blame events beyond their control, like 9/11, Katrina, etc. But that's a monstrous and inaccurate cop-out.

The Bush administration has made no effort to be fiscally responsible, or to show leadership over an intractable bureaucrasy, or to control pork, or to do any of the other things we expect conservatives to do.

While I've approved of the President's efforts to combat terrorism, he's lost my support on his management of the government and the budget. Perhaps a Democratic President neutralized by a Republican Congress really is the best prescription for the taxpayers' wallets.

Jane, I'm sorry, but you are an ig... Just kidding. People forget that we have had great success in regional transformation with a key economic interest (ala oil) and a deposed thug that we probably propped up out of convenience in the past. A Bush was even involved. I'm thinking about the invasion of Panama. Much smaller country, region, and economic problem (the canal) than Iraq, the Middle East, and oil, but we took care of it, got the bad guy, and ol' Pineapple Face is fermenting in jail now.

I still support the war in Iraq. Even without the WMD story, I would have supported it. It and Afghanistan reset the chess board from September 10, 2001. With Afghanistan, we made it clear that if a regime is an explicit terrorist state, there will be regime change. We put a friendly, more democratic government in place that pretty much everyone in the country is happier with than the Taliban. With Iraq, we have at this point, regardless of whether Iraq petitions our Congress for statehood in 5 years or devolves into total anarchy, established that if a state runs with these terrorists and we are attacked, at a minimum, we have regime change.

If we were attacked again on our soil and Syria's or Iran's or North Korea's fingerprints were on it, we have established that their governments are going to be removed. Maybe just bomb the hell out of the government, and call Kofi to clean it up. Failure to build a great democracy in Iraq might even end up being a long term blessing. Cold War era nuclear deterence worked because the leaderships of the US and the USSR valued their respective peoples. Perhaps the brand of unilateral deterence we are establishing will keep the behavior of Syria, Iran, and North Korea in check because the leaders value their regimes. I see the War in Iraq as essential in setting up that calculus. The trial of Saddam should serve as a reminder to leaders of these countries that they could meet the same, sad end if they get too beligerant.

Look at it this way: Just before the war, you supported the invasion despite predictions by the wars opponents of tens of thousands of US deaths and millions of Iraqi deaths (from starvation, disease, and collateral damage). Somehow, despite these predicted costs (which you may have discounted somewhat) you still thought the war aims were worth the price. Now, with the cost in human lives and in dollars far less than the most optimistic predictions, you think the costs are too high? How come? Either you were too rosy in your hopes for what could be accomplished (and in how long it would take), or you have repriced your cost/benefit analysis.

Excellent point! As one of those who supported and continues to support the Iraqi phase of the War, my expectations going in were that the Baathist regime (based on its prior behavior) still had biological and chemical weapons and would use them on our troops to make us pay dearly for every foot of ground. I accepted the prediction of 50,000 dead Americans and hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis from the anti-liberation pundits as a realistic number but am glad that the actual numbers are far less (although they're always too high).

Sweet Bleeding Jesus.

"""I was absolutely, 100% positive that Saddam Hussein was trying to make chemical and nuclear weapons"""

Because he was.

We DID find Biological and Chemical weapons programs, equipment, and precursors. We did not find stockpiles of produced material (well, we did, but it was labeled "rat poison"). We found evidence the Saddam had attempted to purchase uranium. We found evidence of systematic looting of "dual use" equipment all over Iraq. We found (most of) a centrifuge buried in the yard of a Nuclear Scientist.

There is clear evidence that if there were no active WMD programs, there were inactive ones, and they were waiting to restart.

We did find mass graves of AT LEAST 300,000 people.

We did find a large number of interrogation chambers and holding cells full of dead and broken bodies.

""". But support for invasion would have to be predicated on the conviction that we could put something better in Mr Hussein's place. So far, it seems to me, we have manifestly failed to do so."""

You need to stop living on Internet Time and get back into the real world.

It takes TIME to change a country. Democracy is not in our bones, it's not part of our DNA. It's LEARNED, and the particular shape a democracy takes is largely a function of the culture it's in.

I'm sorry you can't pay attention for a couple weeks, stamped "done" on the cover, mark it off your todo list and go repaint the kitchen.

"""Oh, I could forgive the Bush administration for having a plan that didn't survive contact with the enemy, but they don't even seem to have had that. So these were big decision errors, and I own them."""

How about a plan that didn't survive contact with our alleged ALLIES? Like not letting a division in through Turkey?

I've spent a lot of time in and around the military, reading and watching over the last 20 years, and I still don't seen any evidence that burying the country in American Bodies would have done any good.

Sigivald:
"""Iraq's government isn't rock-solid stable, and has its problems adjusting to democracy, but it's a bit of a stretch to say the current governmental situation is no better than having Hussein strutting around Baghdad."""

The current government wasn't intended or designed to be stable, it's an interm government until the constitution can get ironed out and a representative government stood up.

"""(In fact, I'm not sure I'd say there's no improvement in the overall-in-general situation; there's a lot more open violence now, but a lot less murderous, repressive police-state.)"""

Violence and death are violence and death. The only difference is now you can fight back to a limited degree.

Things will get better when we can turn east and go into Iran.

Ms. Galt again:
"""
Maybe I should clarify. There is a cost to America for the invasion, in terms of money, international political capital, and most importantly, the lives of our soldiers. Is what is in place sufficiently better to justify an enormous expenditure of all three? So far, it seems to me that the answer is no. """

We found MASSIVE corruption leading way up the UN (yeah, shocking) which is probably why France and Russia (who was supplying proscribed technology to Iraq pre-war) voted against the war.

Political Capital can not compete with cash.

We turned off this spigot, which pissed off leftist darlings like Galloway.

"""
As for troop numbers now, I think that they could make a difference, by sealing the borders tighter if nothing else.
"""

You cannot secure borders like that. They're too big, too rugged, and the people coming across them have been wandering back and forth across them their whole lives.

"""
But even if they couldn't, they unquestionably could have made a difference early on, by securing the vast stores of armaments that were looted at the beginning of the war.
"""

That presumes that we knew where the stocks were. that they were looted AFTER the troops got there, and that we COULD have put enough troops on the ground to prevent looting.

From what I've seen and heard (from media sources and friends Who Were There) it's HIGHLY unlikely that we could have had enough people to secure all of the sites--mostly because I doubt strongly we knew where they were.

This whole "enough troops" is a canard.

"""
They could also have prevented terrorists from establishing footholds in at least some neighbourhoods, which has made the decent people afraid to "collaborate" for fear of retaliation.
"""

We can't do that HERE IN THIS COUNTRY. We've got areas where the people won't talk to the cops because of the GANGS. Now, the gangs don't (often) attack police, or blow up "civilians", but are you suggesting we put more cops on the street?

Part of the goal in Iraq was to get them to stand up and take responsibility for their own towns and their own country. You can't have a democracy (or a republic) without a sense of ownership--if you don't feel like it's yours, you're not going to argue for it, much less fight.

The Iraqis are starting to own their own country. It's happening.

Things haven't gone smoothly, but I can't even get a round trip flight from San Francisco to Seattle to go smoothly--why would you expect rebuilding a country damn near from scratch to do so?

My point is: we can't go back. We must support the best civil polity we can come up with in Iraq. None of the critics seem to have a better way of doing that than what Bush is doing right now.

As to domestic spending, does anyone really think that a Democratic president with a Republican congress would spend LESS than a Republican president with the same congress? How could that happen? The Democrat would move heaven and earth to raise taxes. And wouldn't the election of a Democratic president be accompanied by the election of more Congressional Democrats anyway?

CW:
"""The other question, however, is the bigger one: Does the Bush Administration deserve the support of conservatives, having governed more liberally than LBJ?"""

Administrations do not deserve support, regardless of party or ideology. Plans, Proposals, goals, policies and the like deserve support.

Petro,

Thanks for saving me the trouble of framing my own reply. I too was in the military (Marines--11 years active and 17 reserve) and my son is now over in Iraq in the Marines. I agree with you wholeheartedly.

Spencer, I answer all your questions with a resounding YES, so I guess it's all a matter of perspective. Having put my life on the line for so many years, you should forgive me for trusting my perspective more than yours.

"does anyone really think that a Democratic president with a Republican congress would spend LESS than a Republican president with the same congress?" I might say yes, considering that the smallest spending increases since Eisenhower occured with a Republican House, a Democratic Senate, and a Democratic president (Clinton). Gridlock is better than what most politicians of any party want, which obviously is to tax, borrow, and buy votes.

However, the thought of Kerry, Dean, Gore, Hilary, etc., as commander-in-chief during a war gives me the willies. Lieberman might be OK, but I think the VP nomination was as high as he can possibly go within the Democratic party as it is now constituted - that is, largely run by knee-jerk anti-war activists.

The grand strategic goal of both the Afghan and Iraq wars was to fundanmentally alter the balance of power within the ME, hopefully in a way that would, over time, yield governments and people who would be less likely to engage in terrorist acts against the US. It isn't clear to me what option we could have tried, short of war, which would even potentially have had this outcome. We've tried jsut about every option on the talking front for decades with no noticable effect and there is no reason to suppose that more talk would have yielded a better result this time.

In terms of the military operations, when compared to any remotely comperable operation, we have done quite well. Casualties, both military and civilian were an order of magnitude lower than even the most optomistic planners suggested. It is certainly the case that rebuilding was tougher and more expensive then anticipated but it is also the case that the state of Iraqs basic infastructure was much worse than anticipated and the level of armed resistance, both local and imported, was higher as well. That said the results to date compare favorably with the occupation and rebuilding effort in Germany after WWII.

The jury is still out as to whether the broader strategic goal can be achieved and probably will be for years to come but so far things seem to be moving in a favorable direction.

In determining whether the war was a good idea it is necessary to consider what the alternatives on offer were and whether we would be better off now if we had pursued them.

A point that I rarely see addressed is an alternative long term plan. I'm asking (in good faith) what would some of the anti-war folk has us do to deal with Saddam? The most common answer to this was to continue the course and enforce the sanctions because they were working. Well, it matters how you define "working".

It is arguable whether or not the sanctions prevented Saddam from obtaining WMD's. Let's assume for the sake of arguement that they were doing so. The sanctions were still causing great misery to the Iraqi people -- a number of NGO's estimated that 100k Iraqi children were dying every year of disease and malnutrition, the Oil for Food program notwithstanding. Saddam wasn't suffering, but the people certainly were.

I think a point that a lot of people forget is how unpopular the sanctions were in the Middle East. This was cited as justification for the first WTC bombing by the bombers. It was also having the effect of inflaming and radicalizing many Arab populations, both in the West and in the ME. The U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia that was necessary to enforce them was constantly cited by OBL as justification for Al Qaeda's attacks on the U.S.

One of the other alternatives I hear is that the U.S. should have waited on U.N. action. That might have been a tenable position a couple of years ago, but with everything we've learned about the Oil for Food program it seems more and more unlikely. Saddam had succeeded in corrupting high level officials in the U.N., and it looks like at least some within the French government. The chances of the U.N. backing an invasion of Iraq look to be slim to none in retrospect.

So what should we have done? I'm sure that nobody is advocating taking the clamps off Saddam and letting him do as he wished. There are plenty of things about this war that haven't gone as expected and/or planned, but I still haven't seen a better long-range alternative.

I'm not sure how much international political capital we actually had. Many of our "allies" turned on us so fast, I'm not sure they were ever really with us. National governments usually act only in the interest of themselves. Alliances and coalitions are almost purely matters of convenience.

Others have already pointed out the evidence of WMD programs that have been found in abundance. In addition, I suspect that the Iraqi people will be better off without the plastic shredders and mass graves... as will we all.

EI

Cheers to the many cogent and substantive rejoinder's to Jane's recently acquired cold feet. I can only add a few additional thoughts.

Didn't the Iraqi's just adopt a new constitution? Didn't they turn out not too long ago in the face of widespread terrorism to vote? Isn't the same thing happening in Afghanistan? Aren't the bad guys fighting our military THERE as opposed to bombing us HERE?

A bit of perspective: Things weren't so rosy two years into the Civil War or WWII, and no one had a plan for making everything come together nicely once victory was achieved. Fortunately, back then, we were a bit better about not second-guessing ourselves to death and so we finished the hard work that needed to be done and endured a post war period that included, for those whose memories just can't reach back that far, a forty year nuclear stalemate and half the world under totalitarian rule. Talk about not forseeing the effects of unconditional victory, yet the same people who blister Bush's lack of a plan give Roosevelt and Truman an after-the-fact pass.

As a final note, the flagrant use of hyperbole to describe our casualties in this essential conflict is one of the many gross disservices the MSM, the Left and now our host have done to our long term interests. Under the new cost/benefit analysis, when casualties approach 2000 dead, the cost of the war is too high. Sixty years ago, with roughly half of today's population, we took 500 million casualties to win wars against much more able and committed enemies.

P.S. Oh yeah, Jane, you're right about the spending, but that was a no-brainer.

spencer asks some questions....

Has the invasion improved the US ability to
influence events in the rest of the world?

Has the invasion made it more likely that democratic and capitalistic societies will emerge in the area?

The answer to these question is still open, but the evidence keeps building that the answers are negative.

Libya gave up it's own WMD programs, and Qudhafi made no secret of the fact that he only did this because of our invasion of Iraq. Syria is well on it's way of a complete withdrawal from Lebanon, and I think it exremely unrealistic to claim that the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with this decision.

And, of course, there have been a few elections recently in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Two countries that were suffering under despotic and repressive regimes prior to America's intervention are now forging democracies for the first time in recorded history. You must have heard about them, it was in all the papers.

In all fairness, spencer, I don't think that you're being at all truthful in your assertion that the US has lost some ability to influence events in the world. I think the evidence is overwhelming that we've actually gained a great deal.

James

Jane clarifies her position....

There is a cost to America for the invasion, in terms of money, international political capital, and most importantly, the lives of our soldiers. Is what is in place sufficiently better to justify an enormous expenditure of all three?

I have a great deal of affection for you, Jane. You were the first popular blogger to link to my own unworthy attempts, and you've been very polite when we've communicated in the past. I really, really don't want to offend you.

Having said that, I have to observe that it smells bad when someone who doesn't interact with the troops tries to use concern for their welfare as justification for personal political convictions.

I've expanded my charity work to include self defense instruction for the families of the troops serving overseas. I've met a fair number of people, spouses and children as well as those who are going into harm's way, and I've yet to come across anyone who doesn't think that this is an unworthy effort. Yes, sacrifices are made. But they are shouldered by people who think that the results justify the cost.

You would have a point if their lives were being squandered for nothing. The only problem is that the majority of the people who have to pay the price don't agree with you.

James

If one is going to question the wisdom of invading Iraq, one has to propose alternative strategies. The sanctions regime was going to collapse. Period. It was going to collapse due their unpopularity in the region, and, more importantly, because at least two members of the U.N. security council did not wish to adhere to them. The choice was to either remove Hussein by force, or to have the Tikrit mafia, unencumbered by sanctions, control some of the largest oil reserves in the world for at least several more decades.

To put things a bit more graphically than Mr. Fehr, who I fundamentally agree with, this war is a means to a path by which the oil in the region can be extracted without either enslaving the people by proxy, which has been the model for seven or eight decades, or without killing several million people. The enslavement by proxy model is what led to 9/11, and going down that path further was going eventually lead to the killing of millions paradigm.

If one no longer is going to use despots to facilitate oil extraction, then the only alternative is through effecting self government. How is this to be done? By wishing it really, really, really hard? Keep in mind that a despotism wedded to control of the most important natural resource in the world can be sustained for a very, very, long time, since the natural resource provides enough hard currency to keep the despot in luxury, while still providing enough juice to keep a sufficent number of thugs employed terrorizing anybody who gets out of line.

If the nut in North Korea can hang on as long as he has with nothing to sell, how many decades could the oil thugs maintain their position? How many attacks would the rich oil consumers be subject to, being seen as the enablers for the oil thugs? At what point would the rich oil consumers decide that the attacks they had endured had become severe enough, and thus decided that were just a whole lot of people alive in the Persian Gulf region that they would prefer to be dead?

My guess would be a mass attack that, say, killed 100,000. Since Islamic terorism had jumped from a few casualties per attack, to a few hundred, to a few thousand, in a relatively brief time period, it would have been unwise in the extreme to hang on to the status quo for a few more decades. There are times when extremely risky revolutionary change must be attempted, because the risk of the status quo has become unacceptable. This was one of those times.

As to execution, this has been pretty much what I expected, for what was being attempted was very, very, hard. It isn't even clear to me that more troops would have been desirable, even if they were available (they weren't). The center of gravity is the Iraqi population; will they cooperate enough and sacrifice enough to achieve self-government? Shielding them from the cost of civil war, through much more massive American troop numbers, certainly would have increased the sense of occupation, thus inevitably tarring as a puppet any Iraqi who sought to govern with our cooperation. Note that none of the cries for more American troops have come from the Iraqis themselves. The Iraqis must have the sense that it has been largely their sacrifice which has created their government, and any Iraqi government which is going to have sufficiently widespread support cannot be seen as a puppet. A massively larger American military deployment would hinder this.

War is hard; just about the most difficult of all human endeavors, amd if were to criticize this Administration, it would be for too often failing to be brutally frank regarding this central truth. This war, however, is not lost yet, and keeping in mind the difficulty of the task, there is some reason for saying good progress has been made, even if there is a long, long, way to go.

Finally, as to domestic matters, this Administration has governed pretty much as I expected, it having been headed up by a guy who made his pile via direct taxpayer subsidy of his private eneterprise. This is why I never had any hope for it on domestic matters.

The only problem is that the majority of the people who have to pay the price don't agree with you.

Um..They don't agree with anyone. They are dead.

To be fair, mckinneytexas, the second guessing in the Civil War was pretty damned rampant. One of the geniuses of Lincoln was his ability to keep his head and effectiveness while everyone around him was losing theirs. He was one American President who didn't need to be advised that it wasn't time to get wobbly.

Nice of you, cynic, to conclude that the people who have come back alive but severely wounded, or even slightly wounded, haven't paid a price, nor, according to your titanic feat of reason, have the families of those killed paid a price. Also, I guess, again, according to you, nor have those who have been seperated from their families for long period of time, but have made it back unharmed, paid any price. Thanks for your contribution.

mckinneytexas complained about "the flagrant use of hyperbole to describe our casualties" and "when casualties approach 2000" when he wrote:

Sixty years ago, with roughly half of today's population, we took 500 million casualties to win wars against much more able and committed enemies.

First of all, a casuality isn't a death. There are more American casualties than 2000, the number is approaching 15,000. But lets assume you meant deaths, since you speak of casualties approaching 2,000

There were about 50 million deaths in World War II, not 500 million. We (the United States) didn't incur those loses. If you're going to count the total dead in WW II, you need to do that in Iraq as well. The United States suffered 405,399 deaths in World War II.

So to make any sense of your 500 million number, you on hand take all casualties suffered by all parties and compare it to US deaths.

You could make a point that the US deaths were much higher then, and compare 400,000 to 2,000. But you chose not be honest and instead inflated one of the numbers over a thousand-fold.

You're well qualified to discuss "the flagrant use of hyperbole to describe our casualties."

Regarding the WMDs that were never found. Actually they were but not in Iraq. The breakup of the AQ Khan do-it-yourself nuclear weapons black market made the entire operation worthwhile all by itself. We learned of it when Quadafi suddenly gave up his program because "I saw what happened to Saddam and I was afraid." That was an extremely positive outcome. If the black market had gone on undetected or unstoppable for a few more years there would certainly have been a nuke in the hands of Al Qaida or some other terrorist organization with all the dire consequences it would entail.

Here's an economic exercise for you. How could Libya with 6 million people, a GDP of $33B, and a literacy rate of 50 to 75% build a weapon that costs $100B and needs 20,000 highly trained people from PhD physicists and chemists to skilled machinists and technicians? Compare and contrast with the state of Massachusetts which also has a population of 6 million.

Finally Jane, I've read your blog a long time and I'm sad to say you've finally become a journalist. You confuse the ability to write, which is fairly trivial, with the ability to do. Anyone who's ever done anything new or made anything of any consequence, whether a large piece of software or hardware, a machine, or built an organization learns that the first plan doesn't work, neither do the second through the fifth revisions. It all slowly comes together by successive approximation and it's never ever perfect. It requires a willingness to persevere through real hardships and endure the beatings that reality gives you. Rebuilding a country that has been destroyed by a criminal conspiracy as massive as the one run by Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath party is levels above what even the biggest corporate chieftain has to deal with. Bush and company have done a magnificent job considering all the obstacles they've had to deal with.

Why do people post 8 paragraphs rehashing tired arguments? Who reads them? Jane no doubt knows all of them; she is trying to move on.

"Finally Jane, I've read your blog a long time and I'm sad to say you've finally become a journalist. "

Mixing odd personal attacks with your argument is going to work really well, I'll tell ya.

Jane, I opposed and still remain opposed to the war, but I like your open-mindedness. I often reassess things myself. Looking at the war from multiple angles is important. Unfortunately, every time someone tries to look at a specific aspect, say, the stabilizing/destabilizing effect of US troops in Iraqi cities, partisans and zealots crowd them out by talking about how Saddam was a bad man, or the US is imperialistic, or any other unrelated argument. I think it serves us well to calm down the peanut gallery now and then by asking "what's your point?"

Uh, did you just say that we haven't put anything in place that's better than Hussein? That's like saying because 60,000 people have died in Kashmir since the late 80s, the British should have stayed. Really. I'm shocked that someone could write something like that.

Oh, and partition doesn't count. We're no where near those numbers. It's harder than you thought. It's harder than a lot of people thought. But, it's also been more successful in some ways than people thought. Seriously. Go back and look at the predictions by some. They predicted far more casualties; in the millions, even. And there was a plan: it's wasn't a good or robust one. And if national humiliation was such a big thing, then wouldn't more occupation troops add to that? Sorry, you are usually far more level headed than this.

I mean, we invade, remove a dictator, occupy a country in one of the most dysfunctional and violent parts of the world, we have essentially proxy-engagements with Iran and Syria. Considering, I think things are going as well as expected. I wish there was less violence. I wish our guys would and could come home. But this sort of mea culpa, weak-mindedness drives me insane.

Oh, and the other thing about this that bugs me is that it's about making the person fessin up feel better. It doesn't help us or the Iraqis win. Sorry, I know that's kind of mean, but, jeez. We have guys in harms way, and Iraqis who are counting on us to help them. I'm not talking about not criticizing; I'm talking about trying to CYA when the going gets tough.

Questions for Jane:

What would have constituted not muffing the war badly?

1,000 American fatalities instead of 2,000?

A constitution approved ten months ago instead of five days ago?

Finding stockpiles of WMD's?

I'm asking because I don't know what your criteria are for success versus failure at this point.

You say the war will be successful, in hindsight, if the democratic experiment takes hold in Iraq and thrives.

So does that mean the war may have been successful so far, and we just have no way of knowing it yet? Does that mean the war so far has been a failure, but that somehow we still have a chance of turning defeat into victory?

Please explain what metrics you are using when you sense that overwhelming war-wobbliness taking over.

Will Allen writes:

To be fair, mckinneytexas, the second guessing in the Civil War was pretty damned rampant.

Fair point. My error.

Michigander calls me out twice, correctly, on using the word 'casualties' instead of 'deaths' and then brilliantly substituting 'million' for 'thousand'. That is what happens when you don't proof. Lesson learned, hopefully. Let me clarify. The US sustained roughly 500,000 war and war-related dead in WWII although our population was roughly half of what it is today. We lost approximately 2700 dead at Pearl Harbor, as I recall. In Iraq, over a two plus year period, we are in the 2000 dead range. By any historical measure, American deaths in Iraq are miniscule (note that I am talking about historical statistics, not the personal tragedy of having lost a loved one).

Rex -- I was a Marine and a CIA officer.
I gave years of my live and put myself in harms way in service to my country. So do NOT try pulling this shit on me.

Now, let me get this straight. I am not opposed to a war in Iraq. What I am opposed to is losing a war in Iraq. and it is very simple. We are losing the war becuase if Bush and company had been honest -- even to themselves -- about the costs of the war they would have known they would have had to give up their tax cuts.

In a nut shell it is very simple, we are losing the war because the tax cuts were more important to Bush than the war.

Spencer,

How are we losing the war? I mean, how are you judging the results so far to be losing as opposed to winning?

McKinneyTexas--and by the scale of Gulf War I, Bosnia, and Panama, American casualties in this war are far off the charts.

The question here is whether the invasion of Iraq is closer in scale to the war against Nazi Germany and Japan, or to the 1991 war against Iraq. It's certainly equal to neither, but in terms of the massive mobilization of men and resources, the cost to run, and the sacrifice asked of the public as a whole, the stronger case is that this is more like a modern war than like World War III. You may disagree, but I'm not sure you can make a case to do so. After all, we fought WWII with a good deal more than 150,000 ground troops, didn't we?

Yo, Spencer, glad to know that you've put your a** on the line too. But just what do the tax cuts have to do with the war in Iraq? We're funding the war the same way we fund lots of things--by borrowing money (i.e., offering and selling Treasuries). I think that the expanding economy amply demonstrates that the tax cuts were a good thing.

"We are losing the war becuase if Bush and company had been honest -- even to themselves -- about the costs of the war they would have known they would have had to give up their tax cuts."

What are you assuming, and what is your basis, regarding the net cost of the tax cuts? It sounds like you're making the extreme assumption that everything else - in particular, economic growth and the amount of taxable income - would have been exactly the same if tax rates had remained higher. It's entirely possible that, without the tax cuts, government revenues would have been strictly lower because the economy would have fallen apart. We can't be sure of the net effect, either way, but it seems fairly certain that there was at least some stimilation from the cuts.

But the broader question is how you're relating this to the war. How can we be 'losing the war' as a direct result of all U.S. taxpayers being allowed to keep a higher percentage of their own money? Are you suggesting that what really motivates the terrorists in Iraq is the thought of Americans enjoying greater economic freedom?

> And I'm pretty sure the overall murder rate is higher now than before.

The murder rate among AAs was much lower under Jim Crow than it is now.

Spencer, I appreciate your service. I do not appreciate your use of non-sequitur.

McKinneyTexas, your clarification/explanation is appreciated and accepted. I apologize if I jumped a bit too hard.

Jane wrote:

It took us five years of bitter civil war, another five of reconstruction, and almost a century of segregation before we finally pulled together as a country.

How long do you suppose it would have taken if we had been occupied by a foreign power during the civil war?

Single-issue comment.

"I was absolutely, 100% positive that Saddam Hussein was trying to make chemical and nuclear weapons"

You were correct. Look into the Duelfer report.

He had the program in mothballs and hidden to try and get past the weapons inspections, so he didn't have stocks of completed weapons laying around.

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