March 8, 2007
From the desk of Jane Galt:Can I play?
Jim Henley offers up a new game: look back at your archives from March 2003 and see what you were wrong about, courtesy of Brian Flemming. Not surprisingly, mostly anti-war types are interested in playing. I am tempted to duck out, because (cringe!) I was wrong, and expect to find, with painful freshness, myself strutting like a power-mad peacock, preserved for eternity in Green and White.
And certainly Brian Flemming doesn't make it easy to resist that temptation; he just can't resist the opportunity to act like a flaming [expletive deleted], with a series of faux-sorrowful revelations that he was just too willing to believe that pro war people had a shred of humanity left in their cold, dead hearts. It's one of those rhetorical devices which unfortunately strikes the dull-witted and poorly read as exceedingly clever. I find painful enough to read in my own Freshman compositions, but unbearable in someone who is actually over the drinking age.
I mean, seriously, wince:
As I inspect the record, I do see that I made one serious miscalculation. I was right about the war, but I was mistaken about our odds of stopping it. I truly believed we could stop it, on the merits, because it was so clearly wrong. I'm a bit embarrassed that I earnestly engaged the pro-war side at Blogcritics (see the comments for an example), as if they actually cared whether the war was just. It was an incorrect presumption, and I should have realized the utter lack of good faith on the pro-war side somewhere around the 800th time I heard "Don't you remember 9-11?" as a response to an actual argument.But I didn't see it then. Even after this harrowing experience, I still possessed hope, and could write something like this. Instead of blaming the American people, I blamed the media. I truly didn't appreciate the power of war to short-circuit reason. And I didn't realize that many of my ideological opponents weren't merely deluded, they actually didn't care if they were wrong. They wanted war, and they would have it.
So that's what I was wrong about in March 2003. But I learned from it. I'll never again underestimate man's hunger for war, or overestimate the collective intelligence of the American people.
Even before opening my archvies, I can assure you that there's at least one thing I'll learn from this experience. I'll never again hope for any sort of reasonable debate on this subject, or read Brian Flemming's blog.
Nonetheless, not only is fair, well, fair, this sort of thing is an excellent excercise in humility. So I will bring you, sometime before Sunday, an extended parade of my bad decisionmaking. Then I will stab my Brian Flemming voodoo doll through the eyes.
Seriously, though, my antiwar readers are encouraged to make sure that I actually follow through on this.
Posted by Jane Galt at March 8, 2007 11:47 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links"); ?>I can tell you that if there's one thing I know I'll learn from this experience. I'll never again hope for any sort of reasonable debate on the subject, or read Brian Flemming's blog.
Wow. Jane, you and your kind were the ones who did everything in your power to stifle reasoned debate during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Now that it has become impossible to hide the extent of your bad faith you're posing as some sort of victim. Boo hoo. How about a little sympathy for the tens of thousands of Iraqis who are no longer with us because of you and your friends?
Posted by: purple on March 8, 2007 12:07 PMHaha, it's always the sign of a maladjusted personality when they claim that their main mistake is underestimating how much better they are than everybody else.
Posted by: Urstoff on March 8, 2007 12:17 PMSpeaking as someone who was and is against the war, I must congratulate Mr. Flemming (and "purple," above) and everyone else who is able to take the lemon of such a horrible situation and turn it into the sweet refreshing lemonade of smug self-righteousness.
Also, I have many friends who support the war, and I have never heard anyone in all my discussions on the subject admit to me that they were in favor of the war because they're conservatives, and conservatives just like war. Even the least fruitful debates I have engaged in have tended to center around the necessity (or lack thereof) of the evil of war, with all of us understanding that war is in fact evil. I cannot overemphasize the fact that nobody, when asked why they support the war, has ever answered me "Well, come on. It's WAR. You've got to have a good war now and then. Who doesn't love a good war?"
Posted by: d.cous. on March 8, 2007 12:47 PM"Stifle reasoned debate"? Our Jane?
Seriously, purple. What are you smoking, and where can I get a few ounces of it? It must be some pretty wicked stuff, from all appearances.
Posted by: Sigivald on March 8, 2007 12:50 PMTalking about being wrong, I used to be a liberal but I gave up on them because they were wrong so often.
Here are some of the items that I think those on the left should be contrite about before they begin crowing about how right they were on Iraq.
1. Communism was not evil. We should get out of Vietnam as soon as possible because we are the main ones doing evil there. We certainly should not put any nuclear cruise missiles in Europe. China in the cultural revolution was a better place then the US because there was non of that invidious individualism there was in the US. Also Alger Hiss was innocent and there were no significant communist spies in the 1940's and 1950's.
2. The Population Bomb and other ecological disasters. There are too many people and it is hopeless to try and feed them so it is best to apply triage to them and let millions dir (Paul Ehrlich's recommendation from his 1968 book).
3. Rapid Decolonization is a good idea and it is best to get rid of oppressive white leaders like Ian Smith and replace them with black leaders like Robert Mugabe who will rule in the people's interests.(Obviously in South Africa things turned out much better, unfortunately there were more Robert Mugabes then Nelson Mandelas in most of Africa).
The liberal critics seem to be right (although it may still be too early to judge) that it would have been better to be realistic and just let the middle east stew in its current crappy condition instead of trying to get rid of an aggressive and evil leader. That this is true hardly seems something to celebrate.
Purple,
In what way was Jane trying to stifle debate? I just looked through her archives and see nothing of the sort you described. Indeed, she is probably one of the most open-minded bloggers there is- a genuinely rare find, it appears. Now, there are always commenters that attempt to shout down the other side, but those exist on both sides of any debate.
And I agree with Jane and a couple of the early commenters: one must simply ignore smug, self-righteous people like Flemming, though I cannot endorse the resort to black-magic arts of inflicting pain.
Posted by: Yancey Ward on March 8, 2007 1:05 PMCan we play a similar game 3 years after the last American soldier leaves Iraq?
Can we talk about Shia-Sunni civil wars, a mass refugee crisis, Iraq as a failed State, Iran ascendant, Israel destroyed, attacks on American soil, nuclear blackmail against the West?
Posted by: bristlecone on March 8, 2007 1:10 PMOff topic but the Technology Quarterly of the new Economist edition has some bad math. As I explain in an email to TQ's author:
In your Technology Quarterly column you indicate that "a few trillion dollars" is .5% of world GDP. Assuming by "few" you mean 3, that implies a world GDP of $600 trillion (reference: http://www.economist.com/printedition/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_RSGVJPD). Here's your math: 3*10^12/.005 = 600*10^12. The actual GDP is a tenth of that, or around $65 trillion, at least according to the CIA World Fact Book: https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html
Where did you get your figures?
Dave
Posted by: Dave on March 8, 2007 1:12 PMAt the time this was one of the few conservative(ish) blogs I would read because it WAS the only place you could have a well thought out reasoned debate.
But anyway, if it's not up by Sunday Jane, I'll poke you about it.
And I love the idea of doing the same thing 3 years after the troops go home.
Posted by: Kate on March 8, 2007 1:47 PM"Tens of thousands"? Compared to what?
Compared to the estimated 1,000,000 who were killed in SE Asia after we left?
Compared to the almost 1,000,000 who were killed in Rwanda before St. Willie decided to do anything?
Compared to the tens of thousands who were killed in Bosnia before St. Willie decided to do anything? (And then the Rethuglicans tried to stop him--let's be honest, neither side of our political system is shooting for 'Hero of Humanity' status.)
Compared to the hundreds of thousands who were killed in Iraq while Ronald Reagan slept through staff meetings?
Compared to the Lord knows how many who are being starved to death in Zimbabwe RIGHT NOW?
Compared to the hundreds of thousands (has it hit a million yet?) who are being killed in the war in Darfur RIGHT NOW?
If we were talking about anything besides living, breathing, human beings I'd take "tens of thousands" as a compliment when you compare it to what happens when we do nothing.
As it stands, it just makes the anti-war crowd appear as if this is not a principled stand against war (or, even just this war). It makes them look like a bunch of Pat Buchanan isolationists who don't give a damn about anyone else's freedom, liberty, or even right to life.
Posted by: Reagan Fan on March 8, 2007 1:50 PMThis will provoke guffaws from liberals, but I think it's too early to draw any conclusions about the war in Iraq.
Read the history of the Civil War. It went much, much worse for Lincoln (the only President more disparaged than George Bush) and the Union until the last six months. (More soldiers died in the first hour at Antietam than have been killed to date in Iraq.) Lincoln's re-election was in serious doubt until Sherman captured Atlanta in Sept. 1864. New York had suffered draft riots in 1863, with lynchings of dozens of black men, until Federal troops put down the disorder. Copperheads (aka Peace Democrats) pressed for peace, arguing that the Republicans had provoked the South into secession for their own political purposes, and branded the war a failure.
Looking on the bright side, at least this time we don't have the lynchings.
'I cannot overemphasize the fact that nobody, when asked why they support the war, has ever answered me "Well, come on. It's WAR. You've got to have a good war now and then. Who doesn't love a good war?"'
Actually, Michael Ledeen said this,
"Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business"
Not quite the same, but in the same vane.
There were plenty of people offering deranged justifications for the war, justifications that could not be swayed by rational argument because they were not based in rationality.
Conversely, there were plenty of people on the anti-war side who argued from irrationality as well. Contrary to popular opinion, there were also many who made good arguments against the war. Those people never got put on TV though. Only the people with the giant puppets made the tube. It fit the narrative better.
The mistakes I made were twofold. First, I did not see through all of the administrations lies, and supported the war. Second, I picked the easy arguments when debating the war. It is human nature to pick an easy path, and when debating the war, I sought out the fools who reflexively protest rather than those who put forth good arguments. It was easier to win arguments that way, not that winning arguments changed any minds.
In retrospect, I am very disappointed in myself. I had generally kept to the tenant that argument is a path to truth, not a game to be won.
Posted by: Njorl on March 8, 2007 1:55 PM"Can we play a similar game 3 years after the last American soldier leaves Iraq?
Can we talk about Shia-Sunni civil wars, a mass refugee crisis, Iraq as a failed State, Iran ascendant, Israel destroyed, attacks on American soil, nuclear blackmail against the West?"
Well, the Shia Sunni civil wars are already happening. So is the mass refugee crisis.
While Iran will certainly be in a better position, it will probably not be ascendent. The sooner we stop giving them Americans to hate, the sooner Shiite Arabs can get back to resenting Shiite Persians.
Israel is not going to be destroyed.
American soldiers in Iraq do nothing to stop attacks on American soil. At best, they offer terrorists a more productive use of their resources. If terrorists thought that striking the US were a better plan, they'd do it.
Nuclear blackmail requires nuclear weapons. American soldiers in Iraq do nothing to stop that. The greatest nuclear threat is that radicals will gain control of Pakistan. By neglecting Afghanistan to fritter away our resources in Iraq, we risk destabilization in Pakistan.
I have no doubt we will be able to look back on all sorts of bad situations resulting from leaving Iraq. They just won't be as bad as the situations resulting from staying.
Posted by: Njorl on March 8, 2007 2:13 PMCan we play a similar game 3 years after the last American soldier leaves Iraq?
Bristlecone, you're ahead of the game! We all know that conservatives and Bush supporters will blame all of the demons they unleashed, and which are currently rampaging through Iraq out of control, on Democrats once the troops leave because keeping the troops there would have stopped all of it.
While ignoring that most of the things you've described are happening now, with the presence of U.S. soldiers, with Bush's steadfast support and total control of the agenda of the U.S. military. But facts need to take a back seat to framing... Iraq would be peaceful if we only gave more years of U.S. occupation a second (or third, or fourth) chance.
At some point you people have to replace wishing and hoping with analysis of what's really happening, and take responsibility for your actions. It's like Republicans losing control of Congress in 2006; all you had to run on was "the Democrats will be worse!" Well, the unthinkable has happened, and somehow Washington hasn't imploded yet. It's time to find a new way to look at the world instead of how to preemptively blame others for what you have a hand in.
Posted by: Brittain33 on March 8, 2007 2:56 PMRe Flemming: Kieran Healey has a marginally better-written but equally self-congratulatory "look back" post here. Suffice to say that the blinders are in prominent use.
Posted by: Shelby on March 8, 2007 3:09 PM"Well, come on. It's WAR. You've got to have a good war now and then. Who doesn't love a good war?"
Not war but vengeance. And vengeance as a lazy kind of grief.
Posted by: judson on March 8, 2007 3:13 PMBrittain33:
We all know that conservatives and Bush supporters will blame all of the demons they unleashed, and which are currently rampaging through Iraq out of control, on Democrats once the troops leave because keeping the troops there would have stopped all of it.
Don't stop your prediction half-way. The rest of it goes, "We also all know that liberals and Bush-bashers will blame all of the demons affecting the entire Middle East on Republicans once they drag the troops out prematurely because earlier withdrawal would have transformed the region into one of peace and tolerance."
Doubtless there will be some who live down to these "predictions". And doubtless the most intellectually ingenuous, the most craven and pathetic, on each side will single out those few and pretend they represent everyone on the other "side".
But I'm sure that won't describe you.
Posted by: Shelby on March 8, 2007 3:16 PMI regret being totally convinced that the war plans were part of a nefarious plot for the US to administer large reserves of Iraqi oil. I said at the time that if the war had been couched as a humanitarian war a la Somalia then I might have supported it. As it turned out, it was based on the delusional precept that we would be greeted as liberators, democracy would install itself because only a brutal dictator had been standing in the way, and such a shining light would lead to a democratic Middle East. How different is that than my humanitarian idealism? I'm not so sure. In 2003 it was not yet clear how much the neoconservative platform was by its very nature anti-Realist. I find it funny that the Iraq war's massive failure to date has swung my foreign policy thoughts toward Realism rather than moralistic interventionism.
Posted by: dedalus275 on March 8, 2007 3:17 PM"the anti-war crowd"
Now wait a minute. Alot of us were just anti-THIS war not anti war. And the right, "prowar' continues to lump us all together. Many of us thought we should have concentratd our forces in Afganastan and on the Pakistan border. Iraq was and is a tragic distraction that most here should apolgize for, for the rest of their lives.
Posted by: judson on March 8, 2007 3:21 PMShelby, I'll be happy to state right now that that's not me. Because it wasn't early withdrawal that set the ground for the current massacres, ethnic cleansing, and civil war we have in Iraq, it was Bush's decision to start a war without planning for the outcome or committing the resources that might have been needed (both in numbers and in qualified officials) to make his dream of a stable, democratic Iraq remotely plausible.
Iraq is broken. It was dropped in 2003-2004. Everything since then has been watching it bleed out on the table.
As I said, I expect that people unable to come to grips with that and unwilling to pay the price for their mistakes will look to blame Democrats for the results of their actions. It has happened already. We have people from Dick Cheney to bristlecone saying that the continuation of current conditions, much less their worsening, would be caused by the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
The reality to be acknowledged is that Iraq is going to be bleeding for a long, long time, and our ability to control it has declined to near zero. Unless Jesus comes back to Earth, whether we keep our troops there another month or another century isn't going to change the outcome, only in terms of the number of soldiers who will lose their lives so Republicans can claim to have been right.
Posted by: Brittain33 on March 8, 2007 3:23 PM"Bristlecone, you're ahead of the game! We all know that conservatives and Bush supporters will blame all of the demons they unleashed, and which are currently rampaging through Iraq out of control, on Democrats once the troops leave because keeping the troops there would have stopped all of it."
I once wrote a parody of a scene from "The Producers" in which Leo Blum innocently concocts the idea of making more money with a flop than a success. It was based on the idea that a failure of a war was better politically than a successful one.
With a successful war, it hooray hooray what have you done for me lately. Poppy Bush lost his election despite winning a war. With a failure, you get to keep people in a constant state of "support the troops or you're a traitor". You also get to blame Democrats for a full generation or two if they pull the troops out.
It's win-win, except for all the dead people.
Posted by: Njorl on March 8, 2007 3:37 PMRe Flemming: Kieran Healey has a marginally better-written but equally self-congratulatory "look back" post here. Suffice to say that the blinders are in prominent use.
I guess assertions like that suffice when you don't seem to have much else to offer. Nearly all of my post is direct excerpts from what I was writing then. No faux-sorrowful handwringing, no demonization of the other side, and I say up front what I think I got wrong. I won't apologize for the things I got right, though. If you read the post you'll find that I spent a lot of my time in March '03 arguing -- in terms that libertarians and Burkean conservatives ought to be quite comfortable with -- that things are easier to sketch in theory than execute in practice, that you need to know what is happening on the ground, that historical legacies restrict possibilities for radical change, that people are not angels and have their own agendas, that powerful governments are tempted to overreach themselves, and that ignoring these facts in pursuit of grand foreign policy schemes will probably lead to a big mess. Elementary political sociology, Hayekian skepticism about grand state plans, or Polanyian respect for inherited practices all pointed in the same direction on this question at the time, and plenty of people said so. It's a pity it didn't do any good.
Posted by: Kieran on March 8, 2007 4:24 PMWhy waste time on what amounts to an extended bout of navel-gazing? It won't advance any cause you're interested in, it will just provide people an opportunity to pepper your page with snarky comments, and it won't leave you or anyone else any the wiser about what we need to do in the future.
Most people aren't that great at making the "right" decision - there's a strong element of chance, and it's very easy to be misled by the information sources that inform you. Given the limits on what each of us knows, the best you can really hope for is an informed and ethical decision. Whether you get it right or wrong really isn't entirely up to you - events will decide that.
Posted by: Nanonymous on March 8, 2007 5:03 PMThe best part of this thread is the conjunction of purple's "Glenn Reynolds call anti-Iraq-war types traitors, So Jane must be a hypocrite for her snark!" with Larry San Francisco's "I'll express mild contrition for being wrong when every liberal in the country apologizes for Alger Hiss!"
Same ovregeneralization seguing into an irrelevant attack, same complete lack of a sense of humor, same partisan loyalty defiled by any real underlying motive ethic, and polar opposite conclusions.
But Larry wins for the Hiss reference.
(And yes, Flemming is annoying as all get out.)
Posted by: fishbane on March 8, 2007 5:33 PM"Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business"
Njorl, I stand corrected.
Posted by: d.cous. on March 8, 2007 5:38 PMKieran, if you're still checking these comments out, what is with the frothing over Glenn Reynolds? I know he's not everyone's cuppa, but why the urge to turn a reflection on one's own posts of four years ago into an attack on him? (I've seen some others doing this as well, so you're not the only one, but I don't expect you can speak for them.)
Posted by: Shelby on March 8, 2007 5:51 PMHindsight bias, come on! A more useful exercise would be for everyone to identify which of their positions they hold now will be "right" and which ones will be "wrong" four years from now?
Or at least look back and pick two separate positions where one was "right" and one was "wrong" and see what you learned.
It is simple to complete a maze from finish to start. Not so easy to predetermine what outcomes will be in the future.
Posted by: Pete on March 8, 2007 5:58 PMJust read Flemming's blog. Even better is to lament being wrong in such a righteous sort of way. It is like the job interview "weakness" of working too hard.
Posted by: Pete on March 8, 2007 6:04 PMI'm very curious to see what you were wrong about and how you came to believe you were wrong. It seems silly to draw such conclusions only 4 years out.
So far, I'd only say that I was wrong in expecting popular support to be better maintained. I also believed that popular support (the belief that the decision to go to war was not wrong) is important to success. It may yet prove not to be.
Posted by: aaron on March 8, 2007 6:34 PMIraq is broken. It was dropped in 2003-2004. Everything since then has been watching it bleed out on the table.
Oh, please. Iraq was broken a good three decades before 2003, when a murderous thug took power. Now the thug is sleeping with the fishes, and the people who used to wake up every morning with his boot in their face now have a chance to live in a Country That Doesn't Suck. A chance, mind you. The idea of Iraqi quasi-democracy could well fail, especially if politicians (American and Iraqi) muck it up. But at least now they have a chance at a better life.
Posted by: RMc on March 8, 2007 7:44 PMThey had a chance in 2003-2004. Now, they have several ugly paths that involve chaos, sectarian violence, and Islamofascist repression of women. Nothing the Democrats do or fail to do is going to remove the "chance" at a bright future that evaporated when Bush failed to follow through on his invasion with some stability.
And while Saddam Hussein was a murderous thug, there was at least as good a chance of a coup replacing him with a transitional government as there is of a good government emerging from the chaos we have today in Iraq. You need to look at opportunity cost on all sides.
"Better than Saddam" doesn't cut it any more. For all the bad things Saddam did, he didn't unleash ethnic cleansing in Baghdad, hostagetaking at universities, and bombs in marketplaces that kill dozens or hundreds of people at a time. Please, take some responsibility for the negative consequences of your candidate's bad planning, execution, and denial of Iraq. It isn't all repainted schools.
I went through this whole exercise in 2003, when I was posting on the sff.net site. I told the right wing types that it didn't matter if our occupation was successfull or not (democratic, secular, peacefull, reasonably decent economic decision making), because I had already won. We were there and we had made sure that there were no WMD. Now we can cartelize the country and leave.
Nation building was not a success. Why it was not a success is a matter for screaming debates for the next 20 years, but the WMD arguement is over. Cartelization is taking place, messily instead of neatly, but it is happening. Iraq is going to be three stable countries (or more, I hope) very soon. Then we'll be out because no one is going to be shooting at us any more and the Democrats aren't even going to try to make sure that the Republican supporting oil companies get to control and profit from the oil.
This will happen in 2009.
what is with the frothing over Glenn Reynolds? I know he's not everyone's cuppa, but why the urge to turn a reflection on one's own posts of four years ago into an attack on him?
Your threshold for "frothing" (at the mouth, l suppose) seems lower than mine. In the post I say "Gene Healy comes out looking pretty good. Glenn Reynolds maybe not so much." That's all. The only other reference is in one of the posts from March 2003, which says "Glenn Reynolds is making the best of it" (i.e., a terrible Presidential press conference). That counts as an urge on my part to launch a frothing attack on him?
Gene and Glenn's retrospective posts were the first two I came across after learning about this from Jim Henley. Glenn is a rather well known blogger. That's all.
Posted by: Kieran on March 8, 2007 9:11 PMFor a textbook example of the historical ignorance and hingsight bias afflicting many opponents of the Iraq war take a look at this quote from Brittain33.
"Better than Saddam" doesn't cut it any more. For all the bad things Saddam did, he didn't unleash ethnic cleansing in Baghdad, hostagetaking at universities, and bombs in marketplaces that kill dozens or hundreds of people at a time.Notice how two minor items in Saddam's past, the invasions of Iran and Kuwait, are completely forgotten.
Global security discussion of the Iran-Iraq war
Casualty figures are highly uncertain, though estimates suggest more than one and a half million war and war-related casualties-- perhaps as many as a million people died, many more were wounded, and millions were made refugees.The historical ignorance of these folks is stunning to see. They have constructed a pristine little illusion for themselves and reduced the immensely complicated situation before the Iraq war to "lies about WMD" TM.
Hostagetaking at universities is recognized as something horrible, yet they argue with a straight face that having Saddam in power was a better situation. All the argument requires on their part is the simple mental gymnastics of forgetting about the millions of casualties in the Iran Iraq war. That is assuming they ever knew about them in the first place.
They are willfully ignorant tools that are not to be taken seriously.
Posted by: TJIT on March 9, 2007 1:20 AMAnd while Saddam Hussein was a murderous thug, there was at least as good a chance of a coup replacing him with a transitional government as there is of a good government emerging from the chaos we have today in Iraq. You need to look at opportunity cost on all sides.
And that coup would have come from where, I wonder?
1. Saddam's Ba'th and Sunni cohorts, who are a minority presence in the country but were able to enjoy the privileged life wthout risk of Shi'ite reprisal due to Saddam's authoritarian practices?
2. Shi'ites, rising up en masse, even though Saddam had historically done a spectacular job of quelling any Shi'a uprisings before they could spread?
3. The Kurds, who were already geographically separated and partially protected from further incursious by the NF zone enforced after Gulf 1?
So, maybe your point was that there is no chance of a stable government coming out of the present circumstances. Which is just as ignorant a perspective as the coup suggestion itself, by my reckoning.
Posted by: anony-mouse on March 9, 2007 3:11 AMThe historical ignorance of these folks is stunning to see.
Brittain33 is just parroting the Left's standard line about Saddam: he was a bad guy, yes, but certainly not as bad as George Bush. (Either of them.)
Posted by: RMc on March 9, 2007 5:06 AMUm, TJIT, please learn the difference between not discussing something because it's immaterial to Iraq's situation in 2002-2003 and because I don't think they happened.
It seems like two repetitions of "Saddam Hussein was a terrible man" aren't enough to break through the denial of people who still want to believe it's 2003 and every argument has to be aimed at a hypothetical Ward Churchill/ANSWER organizer instead of the real person you're debating. The fact is, Saddam Hussein did terrible things for decades. By the early 2000s, he was wholly contained and fallen well behind other dictators in his annual body count. And that body count, the average Iraqi's chance of getting murdered or tortured, has gone way up due to Bush's inaction and the inability of his supporters to accept criticism of the clusterfuck he put into place.
So I'll concede that the 1980s are past in the sense of the U.S. funding and Donald Rumsfeld schmoozing with the Iraqis, if you'll also accept they were past in the sense that Iraq had any ability to invade Iran or get away with any attacks on the Kurds who were all but independent.
A long post, but evidently I have to spell out everything to try to sidestep mindless comments about how deafening my silence is.
Posted by: Brittain33 on March 9, 2007 7:57 AMThe problem with Republicans like RMc is their belief that the lives of U.S. soldiers are a fair price to pay to check the election of Democrats to federal office. If you can score points off Democrats by keeping soldiers on a losing mission for a few months longer, then it's in the best interests of the country, and the parents and families need to accept that.
I can understand why RMc's mode of thinking was tempting a few years ago. You really did get some Supreme Court judges out of the trade and the promise of conservative legislation, and it was still plausible to believe that Iraq might be going the way Dick Cheney promised and you could feel good about keeping the U.S. there until things got better. But that time is gone, and you aren't even getting electoral credit for uncritically supporting Bush. Now it's all about scoring points for the future. And if it keeps Democrats from getting elected in the future, then RMc believes that America's fighting men and women should do their part and stay in Iraq a little longer while he convinces himself there's a chance the Shia and the Sunni will lay down their arms at our half-assed attempt to pretend we're bringing order to the country.
A majority of Americans have fortunately rejected this disgusting way of thinking. Keeping the U.S. in Iraq longer helps to elect Democrats at this point, because people are so desperate to put an end to the pointless killing. The issue for Republicans isn't scoring points against Democrats, it's about creating more widows and handicapped veterans for no end at all. It's tough to accept, but you have to, for the good of everyone.
Iraq is done. I pray that people in power work through their denial and get past the power games soon, as they're holding the lives of Americans hostage.
Posted by: Brittain33 on March 9, 2007 8:50 AMThere is a big difference between people like Brent Scowcroft who opposed the invasion of Iraq based upon a reasoned analysis of the consequences and the radicals who oppose any war for any reason (or who so hate the United States and the current President that they will oppose anything America does now).
The former type, the realists, who opposed invasion, have a reasonable claim to greater prescience. The latter sort, like "Purple", have no claim to anything. A reasoned criticism of a policy deserves respect and a fair hearing, but unthinking rants against a policy deserve no respect, even if, later, the policy turns out to have been mistaken.
Posted by: Isocrates on March 9, 2007 9:16 AMI got as far as
The problem with Republicans like RMc
...and stopped reading. Wrong again. Not everybody who disagrees with hardcore leftists is a Republican. Some of us are independents. Try again.
radicals who oppose any war for any reason (or who so hate the United States and the current President that they will oppose anything America does now).
Yep. That's why is so hard for the anti-war crowd to gain any traction, even among those who are having second thoughts: because the majority of them are flat-out nuts. People like Britain33 would gladly trade a few thousand dead American soldiers for some good ol' impeachment hearings. (I mean, it's sad they have to die and everything, but we gotta focus on what's really important, right?)
Posted by: RMc on March 9, 2007 10:04 AMBrittain33 in block quotes
Um, TJIT, please learn the difference between not discussing something because it's immaterial to Iraq's situation in 2002-2003 and because I don't think they happened.Saddam's had invaded neighboring countries twice. The risks of leaving him in place to potentially implement a third invasion was highly relevant to Iraq's situation in 2002-2003
It seems like two repetitions of "Saddam Hussein was a terrible man" aren't enough to break through the denial of people who still want to believe it's 2003That sentence perfectly illustrates the logical fallacy people like Brittain33 are operating under.
The decision to invade Iraq was made in 2002-2003. Brittain33 and others cleverly use hindsight bias to bring information (violence in Iraq) favorable to their position back to 2003. Then they use forward bias to eliminate information (invasions of Iran and Kuwait) that is unfavorable to their position.
Only one of those data points was available when the decision was being made in 2002-2003 and entertainingly enough that is the information they choose to ignore.
By the early 2000s, he was wholly contained and fallen well behind other dictators in his annual body count.Another display of stunning historical ignorance.
The sanctions were crumbling, and corruption in the oil for food program was keeping Saddam funded. China, Russia, France et al wanted to end the sanctions for commercial reasons. Human rights organizations wanted to end the sanctions for humanitarian reasons.
Brittain33 has forgotten how Saddam paraded dead children in front of the media to fuel the efforts to end the sanctions. He has also forgotten the outrage over Albright's comment that the dead children caused by the sanctions were worth it if it kept Saddam contained.
So I'll concede that the 1980s are past in the sense of the U.S. funding and Donald Rumsfeld schmoozing with the Iraqis, if you'll also accept they were past in the sense that Iraq had any ability to invade Iran or get away with any attacks on the Kurds who were all but independent.The only reason the Kurds were independent was that they were under international protection, enforced by military overflights and bombing.
In 2002-2003 it was clear that the sanctions that contained Saddam were crumbling and were going to eventually be lifted.
The lifting of the sanctions would produce a massive revenue stream to Saddam. This massive revenue stream would have made it short work for him to re-arm and be in a position to threaten / invade his neighbors.
There were downsides to leaving Saddam in power. Brittain33 and others like to pretend otherwise.
Posted by: TJIT on March 9, 2007 10:52 AM"Can we play a similar game 3 years after the last American soldier leaves Iraq?
Regardless of what happens we must bear the consequences of doing the right thing. Sometimes the consequences are not to our liking. But we still must do the right thing and we must get out of Iraq now. Let Iraqies make their own future.
Whatever they chose, we must be strong enough morally, economically, culturally diplomatically and militarily to deal with it.
Posted by: ken on March 9, 2007 11:04 AM"They had a chance in 2003-2004. Now, they have several ugly paths that involve chaos, sectarian violence, and Islamofascist repression of women. Nothing the Democrats do or fail to do is going to remove the 'chance' at a bright future that evaporated when Bush failed to follow through on his invasion with some stability."
The confidence underlying this comment is impressive. The future is inherently uncertain, yet Brittain33 seems, somehow, to know how Iraq will look in ten or twenty years. Amazing.
Those of us who have not been blessed with ESP must make do with probabilities and educated guesses in an infinitely complex and unpredictable world. My own judgment is that if there is a reasonable chance that Iraq can be set right, then we ought to stay and try to set it right, given the enormous difficulties we will encounter if we give up and leave.
Not being a military expert, I make my judgments based upon the best iformation and analyses I can find. General Petraeus, whose expertise on counterinsurgency is indisputable, still believes that we have a good chance of succeeding in iraq, and I see no good reason to doubt his judgment. We do, after all, have enormous military power and we have more to offer than the insurgents. A prosperous, free and tolerant society is inherently nobler and more appealing than retrogression and religious fanaticism. Nevertheless, this does not guarantee success.
I agree with Brittain33 that the administration has mishandled the war. Donald Rumsfeld deserves particular censure for his errors (though not, in my opinion, his intentions). But that is beside the point. As economists like to say, "rational people think at the margin." What has happened has happened. If it give you pleasure to burn Bush in effigy for past errors, go ahead, but that doesn't solve the problem in iraq. The crucial question now is not: "Was it sensible to go into Iraq?" but rather "How do we make a success of it, now that we are there."
Posted by: Isocrates on March 9, 2007 11:20 AMPurple wrote:
Jane, you and your kind were the ones who did everything in your power to stifle reasoned debate during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.
Wow, refresh my memory here. How many anti-war bloggers were led off in chains after disagreeing with the pro-war bloggers or pro-war government officials.
I love how disagreement is "Stifling debate" when it runs the other way. I seem to recall a lot of people expressing anti-war, pro-UN inspections opinions. I don't think you made your case for debate having beens stifled.
Posted by: Paul on March 9, 2007 12:43 PM"There is a big difference between people like Brent Scowcroft who opposed the invasion of Iraq based upon a reasoned analysis of the consequences and the radicals who oppose any war for any reason (or who so hate the United States and the current President that they will oppose anything America does now)."
Indeed, there is. This has, however, little relevence to the actual pre-war debate (as opposed to the one that took place in some people's minds), as most of us weren't actually opposing "any war for any reason," or out of hatred for the US or Bush. Instead, we were generally opposing a 'pre-emptive' (actually preventative) war aganst a then-contained Iraq for what were, when you got down to it, often rather commonsensical and even conservative reasons. (One example, for me, was that an administration that wishes to initiate a war of choice while showing no evidence of taking said war seriously is probably not suited to do so, regardless of other issues).
Anyway, what might be most productive is people not just seeing how predictions turned out, but why one was right or wrong - what lessons can be learned that might be helpful for the next time.
Posted by: Dan S. on March 9, 2007 4:57 PMBut we still must do the right thing and we must get out of Iraq now. Let Iraqies make their own future.
If we "get out of Iraq now," the "Iraqies" [sic] will be at the tender mercies of Iran and Syria. And there ain't no future in that...
Posted by: RMc on March 9, 2007 6:13 PMRMc is right that the the reason for the exercise is not to see if you win crackerjack's price for correct predictions, but to see if you can learn something vis a vis our present situation with Iran and Syria.
What I thought in 2003 was that the right was right, finally, about the immorality of Saddam Hussein, but very wrong in the course of action they were advising. 2002 was the perfect time to start a concerted policy of detente with Iran, breaking the old and unworkable double sanction policy. It was the perfect time, too, to organize a high level present, with a lot of troops, in Afghanistan, truly pressure Pakistan to make the effort to destroy Osama bin Laden's bandit band, and pick up on the signals from Syria - which were very cooperative. The U.S. had to face a situation in the Middle East that 9/11 crystalized - we would never have the power in the Middle East that we had during the Cold War. To negotiate to a lesser level of power, preserve the stability of the Middle Eastern system, and set the conditions for the internal overthrow of Saddam should have been the foreign policy goals pursued by the U.S. The major problem was how to induct Iran into the Middle Eastern system on conditions that we could live with. These were the to dos. I suspect the U.S. is paralyzed with regards to making Israel withdraw from the West Bank, even though it is in Israel's interest, and certainly the U.S.'s. If we were determined to spend half a trillion dollars in the Middle East, though, we could have spent it to make that kind of thing easier - the U.S. could easily have smoothed over the Palestinian demand for a return of lands seized by Israel going back to 49 with a couple billion dollar fund, if it came to that, which would have been a powerful inducement for peace. Certainly the U.S. could have dropped another ten billion in the no fly zone of Northern Iraq, since building up a strong, capitalist Northern Iraq would have been another attractor that would have helped dissolve Saddam's rule.
But in 2003, I was still thinking Glenn Hubbard's estimate of 200 billion would be the cost. Even the most far gone hawk should have laughed at Wolfowitz's prediction of 10 billion, tops. That lie (insofar as a bad faith prediction is a lie) was so outrageous that the war's supporters should have been given pause.
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