Op-Ed Columnist - The Bush Paradox - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com
The cocksure war supporters learned this humbling lesson during the dark days of 2006. And now the cocksure surge opponents, drunk on their own vindication, will get to enjoy their season of humility. They have already gone through the stages of intellectual denial. First, they simply disbelieved that the surge and the Petraeus strategy was doing any good. Then they accused people who noticed progress in Iraq of duplicity and derangement. Then they acknowledged military, but not political, progress. Lately they have skipped over to the argument that Iraq is progressing so well that the U.S. forces can quickly come home.
Another extended cheer for the Bush surge and the brilliant Iraq campaign.
Let me ask all you folks some questions:
1. Is our war against opponents of the Iraq government, or against global Islamofascist terrorism?
2. Has Iran sponsored Islamofascist terror organizations, and been responsible for the deaths of Americans?
3. Has Saudi Arabia sponsored Islamofascist terror organizations, and been responsible for the deaths of Americans?
4. How does the Democracy Project in Iraq do anything to affect the first two, or make the United States safer?
5. How, when, and why did the war against Islamofascism morph into a war to support a central Iraqi government, and nothing more?
Bush supporters have, for years, pointed to marginal improvements in propping up a central government in Iraq as evidence of Bush’s prowess, but none of these successes answer the larger question of how we are doing against global Islamofascism.
From where I sit, thanks to the morass of Iraq, we are doing worse overall than we were before the Iraqi invasion. And none of the rah-rah gang is addressing that at all - from the hard core military to the broken-glass Bushies.
Submit to Stumbled Upon!
Bill,
This post crystallized something that has bothered me since 9/11 about the governments response. What I could not figure was why they stopped and did the democracy builing in Iraq, rather than continuing on. Now I think I know. They (both GOP and Demos) are stuck in the old Cold War mentality. Not just the politicians, but the media, even most fringe groups, especially the Libertarians.
This is like building democracy in W. Germany and Taiwan to show the evil commies the errors of their way. We did, and we won, but we did so despite the fact that all the cheerleaders on our side wanted the evil commies to win.
Now, the problem is that Iran is the old USSR sticking it to the evil USA and the Sauds are a ‘friendly dictatorship’, and Iraq is the show piece to show them how wrong they are. The cheerleaders want the US to lose.
What we need is a post Cold War mentality. One that drains the swamp first, then builds liberal democracies. (Yes, we should have done that with the USSR at the end of WWII, but we know why it wasn’t).
Unfortunately, McCain and Obama are listening to old cold hands, and they cannot help but see it that way. The question is, do we see it differently enough - and more importantly, who does who might be in a position to do something useful with it?
No one. If you apply the same logic to illegal immigration, you stop the flow at the borders, then deal with the issue. And we know the leaders we have are not interested in that solution. It is not Cold War thinking. It is the opposite. Cold War thinking said the American Way of Life was good and worth preserving. By winning, we solidified our enemies into one idea - we (America) are bad and do not deserve to be preserved. And a lot of our Harvard bred leaders agree with this proposition.
How does the Democracy Project in Iraq do anything to affect the first two
By giving the US military a fine jumping off place, with very highly trained ground forces, against those cocksuckers should they find it necessary.
and nothing more?
Who ever said it was nothing more? It’s step 1, or patient 0, or whatever zippy name you want to give it.
You’re a classicist, so try this - Rome wasn’t changed in a day.
as a card carrying hard core military person, how could i not agree with your points?
“One that drains the swamp first, ”
meaning perhaps we should have liberated Iran instead?
Iran borders both Iraq and Afghanistan, if I remember correctly, and I think it would have fallen much more easily.
Not necessarily. I do not think the order matters, it is just that we stopped to soon. Deciding to try to make a democratic government where the people are not ready to accept that is only fooling yourself. Stomping them flat then handing them the keys and saying ” We do not care what you do within your own borders to govern but let it get outside of your borders and we will come back and stomp you again.” May work to provide a government we can work with or a nice empty sandbox we can play in after they are done killing each other off. The idea of freedom comes from within it is not a mandate that can be imposed. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan should have been targets in the mix also. This particular administration just stopped to soon, “Compassionate Conservative.”
Actually, Scott, since I am a something of a classicist, I know this is is bunkum.
Rome was changed in a day many, many times. Marius did it. Sulla did it. Ceasar did it. Those who murdered Caesar did it. Augustus did it. Nero did it. Constantine did it.
Read up on Caesar’s campaigns some time. He faced a problem similar to ours with global Islamofascism when he dealt with Gaul. If the Gallic tribes (barbarian savages with a weird, by Roman standards, religion) attacked Rome, he responded with crushing force. He defeated the tribes many times, and behaved with compassion toward them unless they attacked Rome again. Then he literally destroyed them. In one case, he killed all the men in a tribe and sold the women and children into slavery - more than a hundred thousand of them.
When Caesar was done with Gaul, there was very little trouble for the empire from that quarter ever again. Of course, eventually they became France and Germany, but that’s a whole different problem.
Anybody who cites Rome in its greatness as a support for our muddled policies in the War on Islamofascism really knows very little about war, about Islamofascism, or about Rome.
Had Gaul somehow managed to inflict nearly 3000 deaths in a sneak attack on Rome, Rome would have slaughtered every man, woman, and child from the tribe responsible, then given their lands to either retired soldiers or strong allies. No, I’m not recommending that approach, although our current kissy-face democracy project will inevtably lead to a similar outcome - after some truly horrifying existential style attacks on the US homeland bring the American people to demand the destruction of Islamofascism - which will probably mean the destruction of the Islamic homelands and even the religion itself.
Well, if you are a part of the military that constitutes the “rah-rah gang,” you probably wouldn’t agree with them. And such are not hard to find - most of the mil-blogs are full of them.
It’s understandable, by the way. These guys were given a job to do, and feel they aren’t getting enough recognition for getting the job done - a normal reaction from a culture that has “can-do” tattooed on its forehead.
Still, not so many of them are questioning whether they were given the right job to do, in the right way to protect America.
Iraq really is a component of the war against Islamic fascism.
Consider what we have created: there are now Arabs who hate terrorists enough to kill them. Formerly, there were Arabs who reacted to terrorists with a “yes, but… Israel…the United States…” But in Iraq today, when little boys play with toy guns, the bad guy is the terrorist, the good guys are the soldiers.
And when you die for a thing, you give it value. The Iraqis actually value their elections, because so many of them died for it.
These will prove to be no small things in the long run.
Ben,
I wouldn’t give anyone credit for planning that outcome. That was an unforseen second order effect.
Not to argue, it probably was unforseen, but I don’t think it should have been. In all the wars ever fought, very few army’s have been welcomed as the US Army has, as I’m sure you are aware. I always love seeing pictures of the kids surrounding our service men. Children know they are safe around ours. Eventually, good trumps evil, or at least I hope it does.